Writing Advice Quotes - Page 9

Writing a book is a blood sport. If it doesn't hurt when you're done, you're probably doing something wrong.

...it's merely writing, but you have to adjust your ear – I speak quietly – I sob – I whisper...

Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what's wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

I’m an author. We don’t want to lead. We don’t need to follow. We stay home and make stuff up and write it down and send it out into the world, and get inside people’s heads. Perhaps we change the world and perhaps we don’t. We never know. We just make stuff up.

I’ve always loved the night, when everyone else is asleep and the world is all mine. It’s quiet and dark—the perfect time for creativity.

It's not pain. It's raw material.

For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.

There's no rule for better writing. It's best to make your own rules, and see what works best for you.

A major character has to come somehow out of the unconscious.

Problem, purpose, conflict, goal. Use them. Think about them while you are in the planning phase of your novel; keep these elements at the back of your mind to guide you while you write. When you have written a scene, make sure they are all there, or that if one or another is missing, it is intentional and the effect is what you want.

Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.

Write drunk (on emotion); edit sober (on rationality and intention).Faulkner, reimagined by me.

Writings are thoughts in a defined moment.

You say you have nothing to write about? How do you find things to talk about? You can write about those things you like to talk about, that's your area of expertise

I have a hardcore attitude: a “self-published, ghost-written book” is wrong because the concept behind self publishing is that you have knowledge or emotions that you want to express. Whenpeople read a book—particularly a self-published one—they have the right to expect that it’s the person’s writing, not cleaned-up dictation or slapping a name on a book that someone else wrote.

Through the act of writing, a writer learns more about himself than he could ever imagine.

Publish. Be damned. Repeat.

What I can tell you is DO IT. Publish book one and get book two out as soon as possible. There are very few Harper Lee’s. Most of us are going to have to write a few books to get good at it.

Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when if feels like all you're managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.

Make today the day you begin that awesome idea you have had for years. Now go, write this book, and remember that today is an important day in history.

Storytelling is in our DNA. It's what differentiates humans from other species: we don't just communicate information. We tell stories.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. A finished manuscript is AWESOME! So go, go, go! *waves pompoms*

‎Never say you can't be a writer or a script writer, remember how well, characters in your dreams said their dialogues.

An author needs a lot more than one person to succumb to his literary seductive charms, but, like Saul, he must realize that he doesn't have to--and indeed cannot--capture the hearts of every possible reader out there. No matter who the writer, his ideal intended audience is only a small faction of all the living readers. Name the most widely read authors you can think of--from Shakespeare, Austen, and Dickens to Robert Waller, Stephen King, and J.K. Rowling--and the immense majority of book-buyers out there actively decline to read them.

Modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy. It is easier -- even quicker, once you have the habit -- to say In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think.

Lots of times I’m not crazy about the writing, but I keep moving ahead and somehow it gets better. The important thing is to move forward.

Writing is self-pleasure

I’ve had situations when I’ve actually encouraged authors to self-publish because their book was poor. Now one would conclude that I’m asking them to self-publish because their book was poor and the self-publishing warehouse is where all the poor books belong. But no, it’s because “poor” is only my opinion, and I’m just one in millions of readers.

Write because you love it, not because you want to become rich. Your story will be better for it.

Writing a full length novel is very much like driving a car with snakes in your pants—you just never know what’s going to happen. -- James Scott Bell

What I am trying to achieve is a voice sitting by a fireplace telling you a story on a winter’s evening.

Writers will often find themselves steering by stars that are disturbingly in motion.

The power of the writer is to capture the thoughts live and present them as they appeared in his mind

Don’t write like your mentors

Storytellers think they're writing for the audience. They're writing, in a way, to hurt the audience.

There is nothing more valuable in the writing process than a friend to hold you accountable to your own potential.

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.

Live inside your stories, yes, but do not hide behind them.

[G]ive nothing centrality, because writing is about continually shifting weight from one thing and moment to the other.

All great writers share one thing in common:They finished their books.

Don’t expect the puppets of your mind to become the people of your story. If they are not realities in your own mind, there is no mysterious alchemy in ink and paper that will turn wooden figures into flesh and blood.

Don’t start right off writing the ‘Great American Novel’, that's too much pressure and you'll get disappointed; start with porn, it’s fun and a good way to get your feet wet.

Not knowing stuff - like how your story ends before you start writing - is the seed of a lot of writer’s block.

I've tried to explain to people that I don't 'love' writing any more than I 'love' breathing. It's something I do and it's something I need. If I thought about it as a love/hate thing, I probably would have quit long ago. And then died.

Let grammar, punctuation, and spelling into your life! Even the most energetic and wonderful mess has to be turned into sentences.

Writing is new, relatively speaking. Story telling is ancient. Tell your story first putting aside all other worries. Leave fretting over homonyms, semicolons, and Oxford commas to editors and friends you can be bribe with baking.

Only after a writer lets literature shape her can she perhaps shape literature. In working-class France, when an apprentice got hurt, or when he got tired, the experienced workers said, "It is the trade entering his body." The art must enter the body, too.

The most basic rule of editing is that if you can’t bear to read it, no one else can either. So when you find yourself skimming, commit murder.

The written word is the greatest sacred documentation.

I think if a writer is being honest they’d admit to a file full of a dozen or more stories that are all started to varying degrees. They’re like the kid who wants to be a firefighter and a police officer and an astronaut.

The biggest thing for aspiring writers I would say is that writing is hard work. You can’t sustain the fantasy that it should somehow be otherwise for you because you are more special or more committed than other aspiring writers. You aren’t sitting down to be entertained by the gods or to entertain yourself. At times it can be a thrill and it feels more like play, but we are easily deceived by whatever pleasures or rewards writing can offer. Exhilarating work is still work. Is it work, or is it play? And the answer is “yes.” Does it sometimes feel like it comes easily or naturally? Yes. But did it really come easily? No. Writing doesn’t offer the rhythmic endorphin hit you get scrolling down the screen clicking on memes. Are you up for the work it is going to take to become successful as a writer? It is going to be harder than you think. You are submitting to forces and to a process that you can’t fully control. There is maybe a tiny bit more control if you self-publish, and there is no shame in doing that, but even that is going to introduce hard work. Probably harder than you think. If my next novel can’t find a home, I’m not above self-publishing it in some capacity and then moving on to the next project.

Choose noble goals for your heroes.Make them Sympathize with the poor, collaborates on the good goals, always step forward for the good actions, the first ones to do the right things, care to reserve others rights, and respect the laws, traditions and values.

If you can't give the is-ness of a thing give the not-ness of it! The main thing is to hook up, get the wheels turning, sound off. When your brakes jam, try going in reverse. If often works.

Open your soul and put it out there and dare the world to read it, ready to have them stomp on you and laugh, but ready to do it again the next day.

All forms of art are parallel expressions. Writing is not unlike painting or other artistic endeavors. Each artistic endeavor is an expression of the mystery of the world. The job of the artist is to deepen that mystery, express reverence for the mystery of life, and explore the enigmatic aspects of human nature.

...consider yourself a functional character in someone else's novel - a background character - a person on the street - that's the perspective ...

A love of writing is far greater than any word count.

The more time you can put between you and your manuscript, the more fresh your eyes become and the more mistakes you’ll catch.

On Writing: "A multitude of improbabilities can be forgiven as long as enough plausibility has been established.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.