Quotes on Writing
Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn’t wait to get to work in the morning. I wanted to know what I was going to say.
—Sharon O’Brien
Successful writers are not the ones who write the best sentences. They are the ones who keep writing. They are the ones who discover what is most important and strangest and most pleasurable in themselves, and keep believing in the value of their work, despite the difficulties.
—Bonnie Friedman
If you want to write, you can. Fear stops most people from writing, not lack of talent. Who am I? What right have I to speak? Who will listen to me? You are a human being with a unique story to tell. You have every right.
—Richard Rhodes
Believe in yourself and in your own voice, because there will be times in this business when you will be the only one who does. Take heart from the knowledge that an author with a strong voice will often have trouble at the start of his or her career because strong, distinctive voices sometimes make editors nervous. But in the end, only the strong survive.
—Jayne Ann Krentz
Dig until you hit rock. Then take out that jackhammer and
go a little deeper.
—Allison Brennan
If you don't think there is magic in writing, you probably won't write anything magical.
—Terry Brooks
Believe in love. Believe in magic. Hell, believe in Santa Claus. Believe in others. Believe in yourself. Believe in your dreams. If you don't, who will?
—Jon Bon Jovi
Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you;
figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.
—Barbara Kingsolver
You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others
what’s burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke.
—Arthur Plotnik
Plotting is like sex.
Plotting is about desire and satisfaction, anticipation and release.
You have to arouse your reader's desire to know what happens, to unravel the mystery, to see good triumph.
You have to sustain it, keep it warm, feed it, just a little bit, not too much at a time, as your story goes on.
That's called suspense. It can bring desire to a frenzy, in which case you are in a good position to bring
off a wonderful climax.
—Colin Greenland
The beautiful part of writing
is that you don't have to get it right the first time,
unlike, say, a brain surgeon. You can always do it better, find the exact word,
the apt phrase, the leaping simile.
—Robert Cormier
It's an adrenaline surge rushing through your body.
You have this spark of an idea that keeps threatening to burst into flames and
you have to get the words out on paper to match this emotion or picture in your head.
After this comes the work of cleaning up the mess that you made.
—Janet West
You generally start out with some overall idea that you can see fairly clearly,
as if you were standing on a dock and looking at a ship on the ocean.
At first you can see the entire ship, but then as you begin work you're in the boiler room and
you can't see the ship anymore... What you really want in an editor is someone who's still on the dock,
who can say, Hi, I'm looking at your ship, and it's missing a bow, the front mast is crooked,
and it looks to me as if your propellers are going to have to be fixed.
—Michael Chrichton
More coming soon!