Writing Advice Quotes - Page 8

Live first, write second.

Be prepared to work hard to be a writer.

Don't be 'a writer.' Be writing.

When you feel that creeping self-doubt, acknowledge it. Write down your feelings in your journal in your journal... and then continue with your writing.

Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. Prefer the short word to the long. Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.

To unlock the writer's block is to keep writing until you can unknot the "not". If you cannot, then put a can in the plot and unwrap it a lot!

When writing, I uncage KAT: Keep Adding Tension. Even if I don't know where the story's going, petting the KAT keeps it purring.

I would write:"The soft melting hunk of butter trickled in gold down the stringy grooves of the split yam."Or:"The child's clumsy fingers fumbled in sleep, feeling vainly for the wish of its dream.""The old man huddled in the dark doorway, his bony face lit by the burning yellow in the windows of distant skycrapers."My purpose was to capture a physical state or movement that carried a strong subjective impression, an accomplishment which seemed supremely worth struggling for. If I could fasten the mind of the reader upon words so firmly that he would forget words and be conscious only of his response, I felt that I would be in sight of knowing how to write narrative.

If someone wanted to be a runner, you don't tell them to think about running, you tell them to run. And the same simple idea applies to writing, I hope.

A writer must expect other people to criticize their work and open-mindedly consider all worthwhile suggestions. Martial arts master Bruce Lee advised anyone attempting to master a difficult enterprise to learn from other people but also liberally experiment and judiciously draw from our own well of intelligence and talent. ‘Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.

Manuscript rejections might tempt you to quit writing or querying. Don't.

I have a great many opinions about writing, but I'm afraid that all of them are unprintable

Education is a cycle of reading, thinking and writing.

On Hayao MiyazakiI told Miyazaki I love the "gratuitous motion" in his films; instead of every movement being dictated by the story, sometimes people will just sit for a moment, or they will sigh, or look in a running stream, or do something extra, not to advance the story but only to give the sense of time and place and who they are."We have a word for that in Japanese," he said, "It's called ma. Emptiness. It's there intentionally."Is that like the "pillow words" that separate phrases in Japanese poetry? "I don't think it's like the "pillow word." He clapped his hands three or four times. "The time in between my clapping is ma. If you just have non-stop action with no breathing space at all, it's just busyness, but if you take a moment, then the tension building in the film can grow into a wider dimension. If you just have constant tension at 80 degrees all the time you just get numb.

Another segment of society that has constructed a language of its own is business. People in business say that toner cartridges are in short supply, that they have updated the next shipment of these cartridges, and that they will finalize their recommendations at the next meeting of the board. They are speaking a language familiar and dear to them. Its portentous nouns and verbs invest ordinary events with high adventure; executives walk among toner cartridges, caparisoned like knights. We should tolerate them--every person of spirit wants to ride a white horse.

Some writers write to forget. Some forget to write.

The only prophecy the artist can make with confidence is that he and his message will be misunderstood by a world that values all the wrong things.

Act one: put your characters in a tree. Act two: throw rocks at them. Act three: get them down again.

Be a good reader first, if you wish to become a good writer.

You have to be in your middle thirties before you have anything worth saying.

Don't let writers block push you around. Figure out what the problem is,whether it's with the ms or it's in your personal life, and face it head on. Don't stop writing. Just try really hard to work through it.

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.

Writing starts with living.

Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.

I think the first duty of all art, including fiction of any kind, is to entertain. That is to say, to hold interest. No matter how worthy the message of something, if it's dull, you're just not communicating.-Poul_Anderson

All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don’t get plumber’s block, and doctors don’t get doctor’s block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it?

Whenever I write I always transport myself into the story to get a better glimpse to what I am capturing.

Destroy your life; then put it back together.You'll get great material, meet some fascinating characters and – side benefit – the skills you develop will give you greater compassion, insight and range with the people you create on the page – or run into off of it.

A character is defined by the kinds of challenges he cannot walk away from.

When it comes to creating compelling fiction, the devil may be in the details, but it is your imagination that ultimately allows your work to spread its wings and take flight. And fly it must. Only by soaring above the clouds of doubt can one truly achieve a suspension of disbelief

If you are a singer, you must sing. If you are a dancer, you must dance. If you are a writer, you must write. Don’t suffocate your heart.

Until you begin to write, then you shall know the wonders of the written word.

You cherry-pick events that are relevant to the story question and construct a gauntlet of challenge (read: the plot) that will force the protagonist to put his money where his mouth is. Think baptism by ever-escalating fire.

Fiction is a careful combination of observation, inspiration, and imagination.

You need to take out the stuff that’s just sitting there and doing nothing. No slackers allowed! All meat, no filler!

It's all mine, it's all sacred.

Writing is like a lump of coal. Put it under enough pressure and polish it enough and you might just end up with a diamond. Otherwise, you can burn it to keep warm.

Avoid stock expressions (like the plague, as William Safire used to say) and repetitions. Don't say that as a boy your grandmother used to read to you, unless at that stage of her life she really was a boy, in which case you have probably thrown away a better intro. If something is worth hearing or listening to, it's very probably worth reading. So, this above all: Find your own voice.

A clever trick does not a concept make.

We should be told: Write fast, write close to the bone, write for ten hours straight until you’re not thinking in words anymore, but in colors, in smells, in waves of memory. Right what you care about. Don’t write one more word you don’t care about. Don’t waste any more of your life on what does not matter to you. Write only what matters to you—those scenes, those dialogues. Get messy. Before you get neat, get very, very messy. Write until you are more alive than you have ever been before.

You were meant to write this book.

Upon the one thing every writer absolutely must have, and that is intellectual curiosity.

Even great, best selling writers produce works that fall flat from expectations. This writing thing isn't easy and everything you produce won't be a best seller, but you must write anyway. You have to write because you love it, because it fuels you, because you can feel the stories living inside you, nudging you, prodding you, itching to get out and the only thing worse than writing it and failing is not writing it. As the late Maya Angelou once said, "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."Even if your work doesn't resonate with others, it is still worth writing. And that in itself, is what's important.

Do you think you’re not ‘ready’ to start that big story idea/project you’ve been thinking about forever?Jump in. Write anyway. The only way to make the impossible a reality is to take a leap of faith.

It's hard for me to believe that people who read very little - or not at all in some cases - should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written. Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time - or the tools - to write. Simple as that.

How do you feel when you read stuff written by dead authors? A visit by a ghost?

Your writing should be filled with simple complexities and complex simplicities. Because that is life.

People say to write about what you know. I'm here to tell you, no one wants to read that, cos you don't know anything. So write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever.

I think the first draft is so challenging because that elusive BALANCE is so challenging.

The reader tries to uncover the skeleton that the book conceals. The author starts with the skeleton and tries to cover it up. His aim is to conceal the skeleton artistically or, in other words, to put flesh on the bare bones. If he is a good writer, he does not bury a puny skeleton under a mass of fat; on the other hand, neither should the flesh be too thin, so that the bones show through. If the flesh is thick enough, and if the flabbiness is avoided, the joints will be detectable and the motion of the parts will reveal the articulation.

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.

Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay

When it comes to writing, clarity trumps all rules.

My advice to writers is this:Walk, talk, breathe, laugh, cry, fall, rise, fail, succeed, run, jump, love, hate, hide, seek, learn, work, play, feel, LIVE.Then write it down.

As a writer, the main skill you need is curiosity. As a reader, the main tool you need is open-mindedness.

When a person sets out to learn from others and not to teach others he becomes a true writer.

Keep working. Keep trying. Keep believing. You still might not make it, but at least you gave it your best shot. If you don’t have calluses on your soul, this isn’t for you. Take up knitting instead.

I usually end have one outrageous minor character. He or she says the stuff I wish I had said in real life. Readers will love that character.

Speed is not always a constituent to great work, the process of creation should be given time and thought.

Write what should not be forgotten.