Writing Life Quotes - Page 9

The act of giving voice to this spiritual suffering is, in my view, the sacred duty of the writer.

It’s easy to write a sentence, paragraph, or book. What’s difficult is writing the best sentence, paragraph, or book, you can write.

Writing is pure sweet freedom.

It's better to be remembered for what you said, not what you earned.

To have attracted readers is the most magical part of my writing life. I was not expecting you to show up when I wrote my first books. It took me by surprise. It filled me with gratitude. It still does.

Why the tag of ‘aspiring’ writer be the wishful cliché? It’s like a bumper sticker. Say it! I am a Writer. Period. We may all have a target and gradation toward successes, a personal illusion/perception. The quality or perseverance in one’s craft is your act. Flaws? Sure. Yet, you are a Writer, not a wannabe. Let go of the tags. Just write!

The biggest difference between writing a movie and writing a novel? No one ever tries to sleep with me to get into one of my novels.

You don't write because you want to say something. You write because you have something to say.

Life consists of books. All experiences are stories to be told and must be written.

I never waited for my Irish Cream coffee to be the right temperature, with a storm happening outside and my fireplace crackling ... I wrote every day, at home, in the office, whether I felt like it or not, I just did it.

Dreams are there for those who dare to dream them.

Live first, write second.

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.

That night I looked Stephanie [Burt] up online and started reading more about her work...I kept encountering a striking factoid...: she’s often cited as the most influential poetry critic of her generation. And she’s openly trans. This is not the world I was taught I would grow into when I was a young trans child -- the one where transgender people are heard, are brilliant, are influential, are even the best. At anything. Being trans, I’d learned subliminally, was supposed to keep you from being that -- even if you loved your trans self, and even if some other trans people and a few allies did too, the world at large would keep your potential tamped down." - from "Surface Difficulty: An Adventure in Reading Trans Poetry," Original Plumbing Magazine 2014

When one stops writing one becomes oneself again, the person one usually is, in terms of occupations, thoughts, language. Thus I am now me again, I am here, I go about my ordinary business, I have nothing to do with the book, or, to be exact, I entered it, but I can no longer enter it.

I don't think you can reach your potential as a writer unless you're a passionate reader, AND read passionately.

I’m a husband, a father of two, a full-time teacher, and so my writing process mostly involves sitting down and writing, any chance I get, anywhere I am, for as long as life will let me. Music helps. Good light helps. I love quiet and coffee when I can get them. But I can write on a bus, in a dentist office’s waiting room, in bed with a clip-on booklight, almost anywhere. And I try to do at least some every single day.

Writing is a 24/7 job. You live it, eat it, breathe it... the pay can be pretty lousy, but you do it happily, because you love it!!! That, and from the day you started writing the voices in your head became a permanent fixture :) ... oh, missed one out - You sleep it!

Fiction gives us a reach into the lives of individuals that would otherwise be but a closed door. If we are gifted with a desire to tell tales, then we should tell them . . . if only to reach but a few.

There has to be something other than keeping busy that gives human life value, because our society so often functions as if ‘productivity’ and/or ‘usefulness’ are the measures of human value, and — particularly for artists — this is deeply problematic. We shouldn’t given in.

In order to write about life first you must live it.

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

Words writers choose are like a glimmering reflection into our souls.

To speak, to write , without charm is to make utterances without reference to a reality outside oneself. It is an act devoid of the playfulness of art, without the attractive humility of one who know absolutely that others exist and therefore feels drawn to please them, because to give them an instant of pleasure is to acknowledge their existence.

It probably seems obvious, but as an editor, I love stories. But it’s a little bit more than that. I intensely believe that stories have power. They can spark an idea, or a realization. They can, by just offering another perspective, change a person’s mind. They can make us weep and cry and care. And they can connect us. That’s powerful stuff.

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

My book sales are way down today. Also, I've received two scathing reviews. One of them calls me “a purveyor of insipid wet-dreams.

I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing

Indentations on the page, words, my friends, and I will share them with you.

If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered.

I read in order to write. I read out of obsession with writing.

What I don't get about "traditional publishing" is that an author creates a work that they think is good enough to be published. They then have to spend their valuable time begging others to exploit them to point where they end up with a 5% stake in THEIR business. What kind of a screwed of business model is that?

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 can be a long and winding road or a straightforward march to the finish.What matters is that you enjoy the journey.

Writing starts with living.

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?

The more you doubt your talent and strive to improve, the better the writer.

Writing places a person in the community of those imaginative spirits whom preceded their birth. Writing also connects a person with the intrepid spirits whom share the present as well as with those souls whom are not yet born.

Use all this life to make yourself a great writer, thoughtful and kind, slowly, surely over the years.

The story comes, and it is pure story. That's all I set out to write. But I don't believe that we can write any kind of story without including, whether we intend to or not, our response to the world around us.

Sometimes it's better for a struggling writer to stay single, than to keep hearing, "Oh, your a writer, and you need to spend time in writing? Then go marry your writing!

I understand that in our work - doesn't matter whether it's acting or writing - what's important isn't fame or glamour, none of the things I used to dream about, it's the ability to endure.

writing is vulnerable is power is freedom.

To get over artist's block, make shitty art.

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

I like to make blank pages darker. It's this thing I do.

Authors always feel in danger of being abandoned by loved ones. This is a potent fear. Yet it's as inevitable as writer's cramp when we presume to write words for others to read.

In her spare time she scribbled her thoughts, wishes and dreams, life and times. It kept her sane despite her loneliness.

Next to motherhood, I personally believe that being an author is the best job in the world.

I have wrought my simple planIf I give one hour of joyTo the boy who’s half a man,Or the man who’s half a boy.

Writing fiction is not a profession that leaves one well-disposed toward reading fiction. One starts out loving books and stories, and then one becomes jaded and increasingly hard to please. I read less and less fiction these days, finding the buzz and the joy I used to get from fiction in ever stranger works of non-fiction, or poetry.

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

When writing a book what is more important? Grammar and spelling or telling a great story? I know which I would choose.

There is nothing to writing. You nourish your creativity for months and years until you release your baby out into the world.

I feel the most alive when I write.

I had a few people ask me if I might one day write my own autobiography. I just told them, 'It's already being written; through my books.

I hope I don't write TOO many books! When I look at authors who have written too many books, I wonder to myself "When did they live?" I certainly want to write BECAUSE I live! I know I don't want to write in order to live! My writing is an overflow of the wine glass of my life, not a basin in which I wash out my ideals and expectations.

Becoming a writer does not mean words will suddenly flow with perfection from your pen. It takes hard work, rejection, and the willingness to lay everything inside you out for the world to see.

I see Sarah framed in the light of her doorway and it is like looking at a painting that emanate a mixture of wishes and truths about someone I loved - from a time I can already vividly remember. I wonder if this is a hazard of being a writer: a sense of detachment that sometimes makes the present seem like it is already past.

Write a daily gratitude.