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7a2752e If something inside of you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you're a writer you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act--truth is always subversive. writing-life writing-advice Anne Lamott
03dbf3e I have spent a good many years since--too many, I think--being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all. writing-life writing Stephen King
9a0ea41 Blessed are the weird people poets writing-life creative inspirational art writers Jacob Nordby
c713220 The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation. writing-life Steven Pressfield
3e3004d Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That's why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there'd be no Resistance. writing-life writing fear Steven Pressfield
e0727e9 "Meggie Folchart: Having writer's block? Maybe I can help. Fenoglio: Oh yes, that's right. You want to be a writer, don't you? writing-life David Lindsay-Abaire
6198058 Writing is supposed to be difficult, agonizing, a dreadful exercise, a terrible occupation. writing-life writing-craft Ray Bradbury
cbc072b The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whisky than is good for him. He does it to give himself faith hope and courage. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul and that I am sure is why he does it. writing-life writing Roald Dahl
b4cbf47 "I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this. writing-life writing inspirational-quotes humor earning-a-living author-quotes self-support writing-quotes gift creative-process talent quotes self-confidence Cormac McCarthy
4c913fb you once said to would like to sit beside me while I write. Listen in that case I could not write at all. For writing means revealing one self to excess; that utmost of self-revelation and surrender, in which a human being, when involved with others, would feel he was losing himself, and from which, therefore, he will always shrink as long as he is in his right mind...That is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why there can never be enough silence around one when one writes, why even night is not night enough. writing-life writing-process Susan Cain
7758877 When I am grown up I shall carry a notebook--a fat book with many pages, methodically lettered. I shall enter my phrases. writing-life Virginia Woolf
2eeea06 It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance. writing-life writing write writing-process Steven Pressfield
53fbe91 Writing is the act of discovery. writing-life writing-advice Natalie Goldberg
8740c29 "Toni Morrison said, "The function of freedom is to free someone else," and if you are no longer wracked or in bondage to a person or a way of life, tell your story. Risk freeing someone else. Not everyone will be glad that you did. Members of your family and other critics may wish you had kept your secrets. Oh, well, what are you going to do? Get it all down. Let it pour out of you and onto the page. Write an incredibly shitty, self-indulgent, whiny, mewling first draft. Then take out as many of the excesses as you can." writing-life writer writing anne-lamott first-draft first-drafts bird-by-bird writing-advice write writers Anne Lamott
1539673 I'm working on my own life story. I don't mean I'm putting it together; no, I'm taking it apart. If you'd wanted the narrative line you should have asked earlier, when I still knew everything and was more than willing to tell. That was before I discovered the virtues of scissors, the virtues of matches. writing-life life-and-living life-lessons Margaret Atwood
75d5d66 Get to work. Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair. writing-life writing imagination Annie Dillard
fca0038 "I mean, what you say about how you write your books? What I mean is, first you've got to think of something, and then when you've thought of it you've got to force yourself to sit down and write it. That's all." ~ Mrs. Oliver" writing-life Agatha Christie
36d797e Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our heats? Can the writer renew our hope for literary forms? Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power? understanding writing-life reading writing Annie Dillard
cf8ecc8 All good writers write [terrible first drafts.] This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts. . . I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said you can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. writing-life writing-craft writing-process Anne Lamott
447d1c5 When people shine a little light on their monster, we find out how similar most of our monsters are. writing-life life-quotes life-lessons fear-quote fearless-quotes writing-philosophy writing-advice life-philosophy fears monster monsters Anne Lamott
bfb4d3e The awful part of the writing game is that you can never be sure the stuff is any good. writing-life humour writing letters P.G. Wodehouse
79f7833 Collaborating on a film script involves two people sitting in a room separated by the silence of two minds working together. writing-life writing screenwriting writing-process Darlene Craviotto
253486e There are writers who write for fame. And there are writers who write because we need to make sense of the world we live in; writing is a way to clarify, to interpret, to reinvent. We may want our work to be recognized, but that is not the reason we write. We do not write because we must; we always have a choice. We write because language is the way we keep a hold on life. With words we experience our deepest understandings of what it means to be intimate. We communicate to connect, to know community. writing-life bell hooks
299b53e "I've written about 2,000 short stories; I've only published 300 and I feel I'm still learning. Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he'll eventually make some kind of career for himself as a writer. writing-life success perserverance Ray Bradbury
f3a7178 Perhaps the hardest thing in all literature-- at least I have found it so: by no voluntary effort can I accomplish it: I have to take it as it comes-- is to write anything original. And perhaps the easiest is, when once an original line has been struck out, to follow it up, and to write any amount more to the same tune. writing-life writing-books Lewis Carroll
a3639ec Putting a book together is interesting and exhilarating. It is sufficiently difficult and complex and it engages all your intelligence. It is life at its most free. Your freedom as a writer is not freedom of expression in the sense of wild blurting; you may not let it rip. It is life at its most free, if you are fortunate enough to be able to try it, because you select your materials, invent your task, and pace yourself. writing-life writing Annie Dillard
fee0a2d Henry had written a novel because there was a hole in him that needed filling, a question that needed answering, a patch of canvas that needed painting--that blend of anxiety, curiosity and joy that is at the origin of art--and he had filled the hole, answered the question, splashed colour on the canvas, all done for himself, because he had to. Then complete strangers told him that his book had filled a hole in them, had answered a question, had brought colour to their lives. The comfort of strangers, be it a smile, a pat on the shoulder or a word of praise, is truly a comfort. writing-life writer joy writing life inspirational writers-on-writing book painting strangers curiosity creativity Yann Martel
839ea72 Writing... is 90 percent listening. You listen so deeply to the space around you that it fills you, and when you write, it pours out of you...You don't only listen to the person speaking to you across the table, but simultaneously listen to the air, the chair, and the door. And go beyond the door. Take in the sound of the season, the sound of the color coming in through the windows. Listen to the past, future, and present right where you are. Listen with your whole body, not only with your ears, but with your hands, your face, and the back of your neck. writing-life Natalie Goldberg
acff4f8 It galls me that seeking out the seedy, the sordid, the sexual, and the deviant is the expected (if not altogether acceptable) behavior of male writers; it would surely benefit me, as a writer, if I had the courage to seek out more of the seedy, the sordid, the sexual, and the deviant myself. But women who seek out such things are made to feel ashamed, or else they sound stridently ridiculous in defending themselves -- as if they're bragging. ... Yet there are subjects that remain off-limits for women writers. It's not unlike that dichotomy which exists regarding one's sexual past: it is permissible, even attractive, for a man to have had one, but if a woman has had a sexual past, she'd better keep quiet about it. sex writing-life John Irving
010828b Of course, if I write a first-person novel about a woman writer, I am inviting every book reviewer to apply the autobiographical label -- to conclude that I am writing about myself. But one must never not write a certain kind of novel out of fear of what the reaction to it will be. writing-life critics first-person-narrative John Irving
e687b72 You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander. words writing-life writer writing imagination writing-inspiration sandcastles writing-quotes writing-philosophy writing-craft writing-advice writing-process Anne Lamott
710df0e One of the few things I know about writing is this:spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is a signal to spend it now. Something more will arise later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. writing-life on-writing-a-book on-writing Annie Dillard
6ca2be2 The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. writing-life spirituality Annie Dillard
e092273 The most demanding part of living a lifetime as an artist is the strict discipline of forcing oneself to work steadfastly along the nerve of one's own most intimate sensitivity. writing-life sensitivity discipline Annie Dillard
1dbbb6c "I remember arriving by train in a small Swiss town. I had walked up a steep, cobblestoned street that offered a sweeping view of the village below and a lake, which, in the late afternoon light, was like a great cloudy opal. And I remember thinking, with a sense of mounting joy, that not a single soul knew where I was at that moment. No one could find me. No one could phone me. No one could see me who knew me by name. For someone whose childhood experiences had pounded home the Sartrian concept that hell, truly, is other people, that was an awesome moment. I knew, at least for an instant, that I was free. That feeling is one I've sought to find again and again. Often I've succeeded, other times, for no reason I can figure out, the feeling of elation and freedom degenerates into a profound loneliness and sense of bitter isolation. But there is still something about arriving in a strange or unexplored city, in Hong Kong or Paris or Sydney, wandering streets one has never walked before, in a place where, only against the most astronomical odds, would one encounter a familiar face. loneliness writing-life writing Lucy Taylor
c21f1aa There is a certain type of greasy hair that you get only when you are writing with no breaks. writing-life writing Mindy Kaling
e0e1001 Concentrate on sharpening your memory and peeling your sensibility. Cut every page you write by at least one third. Stop constructing those piffling little similes of yours. Work out what it is you want to say. Then say it in the most direct and vigorous way you can. Eat meat. Drink blook. Give up your social life and don't think you can have friends. Rise in the quiet hours of the night and prick your fingertips and use the blood for ink; that will cure you of persiflage! writing-life writing-craft writing-process Hilary Mantel
5c602dd The writer has to die to give birth to the intellectual in the service of the wretched of the earth. writing-life sacrifice altruism birth-and-rebirth french-authors french-biographers french-biographies french-resistance intellectual-theories public-intellectuals service-to-mankind women-biographers ideologies biography jean-paul-sartre Annie Cohen-Solal
91b90b6 "Don't give in to doubt. Never be discouraged if your first draft isn't what you thought it would be. Given skill and a story that compels you, muster your determination and make what's on the page closer to what you have in your mind. The chances are that you'll never make them identical. That's one reason I'm still hitting the keyboard. Obsessed by the secrets of my past, I try to put metaphorical versions of them on the page, but each time, no matter how honest and hard my effort, what's in my mind hasn't been fully expressed, compelling me to keep trying. To paraphrase a passage from John Barth's "Lost in the Funhouse," I'll die telling stories to myself in the dark. But there's never enough time. There was never enough time." writing-life writing-craft writing-advice writing-process David Morrell
b130f56 "So they spread the paintings on the lawn, and the boy explained each of them. "This is the school, and this is the playground, and these are my friends." He stared at the paintings for a long time and then shook his head in discouragement. "In my mind, they were a whole lot better." Isn't that the truth? Every morning, I go to my desk and reread yesterday's pages, only to be discouraged that the prose isn't as good as it seemed during the excitement of composition. In my mind, it was a whole lot better. Don't give in to doubt. Never be discouraged if your first draft isn't what you thought it would be. Given skill and a story that compels you, muster your determination and make what's on the page closer to what you have in your mind." writing-life writing-craft writing-advice writing-process David Morrell
9420a69 A novel is always more complicated than it seems at the beginning. Indeed a novel should be more complicated than it seems at the beginning. writing-life John Irving
025541d "Allen Ginsberg instructs: "First thought, best thought." Oh, to have my every spontaneous thought count as poetry! No draft after draft like a draft horse. Clayton Eshleman, laughing, said, "'First thought best thought' is not 'First best ' Ginsberg does rewrite. I'm sure he does." writing-life writing-craft writing-process Maxine Hong Kingston
f60da6c Shigure: G'morning. Tohru: Good morning! Yuki: Um, Shigure, it's . Why don't you get a sleep pattern? Shigure: I became an author so I wouldn't have to. writing-life writing Natsuki Takaya
fac267b La escritura es una larga introspeccion, es un viaje hacia las cavernas mas oscuras de la conciencia, una lenta meditacion. Escribo a tientas en el silencio y por el camino descubro particulas de verdad, pequenos cristales que caben en la palma de una mano y justifican mi paso por este mundo. writing-life spanish-quote Isabel Allende
f79dd82 "There is one myth about writers that I have always felt was particularly pernicious and untruthful--the myth of the "lonely writer," the myth that writing is a lonely occupation, involving much suffering because, supposedly, the writer exists in a state of sensitivity which cuts him off, or raises him above, or casts him below the community around him. This is a common cliche, a hangover probably from the romantic period and the idea of the artist as a Sufferer and a Rebel. Probably any of the arts that are not performed in a chorus-line are going to come in for a certain amount of romanticizing, but it seems to me particularly bad to do this to writers and especially fiction writers, because fiction writers engage in the homeliest, and most concrete, and most unromanticizable of all arts. I suppose there have been enough genuinely lonely suffering novelists to make this seem a reasonable myth, but there is every reason to suppose that such cases are the result of less admirable qualities in these writers, qualities which have nothing to do with the vocation of writing itself." writing-life writing fiction-writers lonely-writer novelists-life writing-mindset writing-myths novelist writers-on-writing writing-process Flannery O'Connor
b9f5fd4 "Every few weeks she would shut herself up in her room, put on her scribbling suit, and "fall into a vortex" as she expressed it, writing away at her novel with all her heart and soul, for till that was finished she could find no peace. Her "scribbling suit" consisted of a black woollen pinafore on which she could wipe her pen at will, and a cap of the same material, adorned with a cheerful red bow, into which she bundled her hair when the decks were cleared for action. This cap was a beacon to the inquiring eyes of her family, who during these periods kept their distance, merely popping in their heads semi-occasionally, to ask, with interest, "Does genius burn, Jo?" They did not always venture even to ask this question, but took an observation of the cap, and judged accordingly. If this expressive article of dress was drawn low upon the forehead, it was a sign that hard work was going on; in exciting moments it was pushed rakishly askew; and when despair seized the author it was plucked wholly off, and cast upon the floor. At such times the intruder silently withdrew; and not until the red bow was seen gayly erect upon the gifted brow, did any one dare address Jo." writing-life writing creative-process writing-process Louisa May Alcott
13ba21a "You can write great books," the great man continued. "Or you can have kids. It's up to you." [...] Writing was a practice. The more you wrote, the better a writer you became, and the more books you produced. Excellence plus productivity, that was the formula for sustained success, and time was the coefficient of both. Children, the great man said, were notorious thieves of time. [...] Writers need to be irresponsible, ultimately, to everything but the writing, free of commitments to everything but the daily word count. Children, by contrast, needed stability, consistency, routine, and above all, commitment. In short, he was saying, children are the opposite of writing." writing-life writing parenting Michael Chabon
bc84620 As a naturally shy person, I loved the anonymity of writing before my career took off. I loved how my stories didn't care about my weight. When I started publishing that writing, I loved that, to my readers, what mattered were the words on the page. Through writing, I was, finally, able to gain respect for the content of my character. writing-life writing feminist writing-quotes writing-craft Roxane Gay
86382a8 Most of my writing life, to be perfectly honest, is not freaky, old-timey, voodoo-style Big Magic. Most of my writing life consists of nothing more than unglamorous, disciplined labor. I sit at my desk and I work like a farmer, and that's how it gets done. Most of it is not like fairy dust in the least. writing-life writing Elizabeth Gilbert
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