Quotes about writing
writing tasks fiction
All fiction is a process of imagining: whatever you write, in whatever genre or medium, your task is to make things up convincingly and interestingly and new. Neil Gaiman
writing night stories
All writers have this vague hope that the elves will come in the night and finish any stories.
writing thinking challenges
I always say that if you're a novelist, the challenge is not writing what you think ought to happen, but trying in some way to write what did happen in a world that doesn't necessarily exist.
writing magic-realism fantasy
Set your fantasies in the here and now and then, if challenged, claim to be writing Magical Realism.
writing ideas differences
You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it.
writing may matter
Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.
writing stories ifs
If you are pointing out one of the things a story is about, then you are very probably right; if you are pointing out the only thing a story is about you are very probably wrong - even if you're the author.
writing pages starting
I'm writing. The pages are starting to stack up. My morale is improving the more I feel like a writer.
writing thinking real-talk
Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
writing feet gone
By the time I got to the hospital, I certainly realised that I had a problem because I couldn't write or print at that time, which lasted luckily only about four months. I'd gone numb here and on my tongue and the right foot a little bit. John Newcombe
writing calm-mind technical-knowledge
See how God writes history. No technical knowledge is required; only a calm day and a calm mind. John Muir
writing glaciers grind
Writing is like the life of a glacier; one eternal grind.
writing darkness style
Obscurity in writing is commonly an argument of darkness in the mind. The greatest learning is to be seen in the greatest plainness. John Wilkins
writing mind buying
In writing advertising it must always be kept in mind that the customer often knows more about the goods than the advertising writers because they have had experience in buying them... John Wanamaker
writing years shame
Once in seven years I burn all my sermons; for it is a shame, if I cannot write better sermons now than I did seven years ago. John Wesley
writing house agents
I have no interest in ever making a movie I didn't write. If they were going to take my house away, then I guess I might have to. But my agent knows not to even bother sending me the scripts. John Waters
writing thinking risk
If you want to write the next great novel, but you think, No, this won't work because no one will buy it or it won't be any good, then you talk yourself out of taking a risk. John Tesh
writing history may
We may live without her, and worship without her, but we cannot remember without her. How cold is all history, how lifeless all imagery, compared to that which the living nation writes, and the uncorrupted marble bears! John Ruskin
writing breathe
I nearly always write just as I nearly always breathe. - John Steinbeck John Steinbeck
writing magic stories
If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another.
writing play giving
Give a critic an inch, he'll write a play.
writing joy satisfaction
I write because I like to write. I find joy in the texture and tone and rhythm of words. It is a satisfaction like that which follows good and shared love.
writing mean cutting
Writing to me is a deeply personal, even a secret function and when the product I turned loose it is cut off from me and I have no sense of its being mine. Consequently criticism doesn't mean anything to me. As a disciplinary matter, it is too late.
writing simple offering
The basic rule [of writing] given us was simple and heartbreaking. A story to be effective had to convey something from the writer to the reader, and the power of its offering was the measure of its excellence. Outside of that, there were no rules.
writing wish certain
I wish to God I knew as much about writing as I did when I was 19. I was absolutely certain about most things then. Also, I suspect, more accurate.
writing poetry mathematics
Poetry is the mathematics of writing and closely kin to music.
writing want way
I do want to make it very convincing. And the best way to do that is to put most of it in dialogue.
writing character past
A creative person has to be alive. He can't borrow from things he's done in the past. He can't let his method choose his subjects or his characters. They can't be warped to fit his style.
writing ideas track
Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page a day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.
writing sight mind
A good writer always works at the impossible.There is another kind who pulls in his horizons, drops his mind as one lowers rifle sights.
writing ideas abandon
Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish.
writing paper whole
Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper.
writing telling-the-truth hardest
Maybe the hardest thing in writing is simply to tell the truth about things as we see them.