Writing is nothing more than a guided dream. Jorge Luis Borges
I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Dr. Seuss
The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind. Albert Einstein
Writing is a product of silence and solitude. Unknown
The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self,
to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of
their power. Toni Morrison
One can never be alone enough to write. Susan Sontag
Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it. Lloyd Alexander
Good story ideas seem to come quite literally from
nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously
unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your
job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.
Stephen King
Wherever you write is supposed to be a little bit of a
refuge, a place where you can get away from the world. The more closed
in you are, the more you’re forced back on your own imagination. Stephen
King
Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s. Stephen King
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen. John Steinbeck
Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself. Franz Kafka
Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living; it’s a way
of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I
do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities. Dr. Seuss
Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty
unfamiliar and perilous – to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the
opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd. Thomas Mann
Solitude is creativity’s best friend, and solitude is refreshment for our souls. Naomi Judd
If you can tell stories, create characters, devise
incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how
you write. Somerset Maugham
Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life. Joseph Conrad
We’re past the age of heroes and hero kings… Most of our
lives are basically mundane and dull, and it’s up to the writer to find
ways to make them interesting. John Updike
And by the way, everything in life is writable about if
you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise.
The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. Sylvia Plath
When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people, not characters. A character is a caricature. Ernest Hemingway
There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be. Doris Lessing
In solitude I find my answers. Kristen Butler
Tell the readers a story! Because without a story, you
are merely using words to prove you can string them together in logical
sentences. Anne McCaffrey
Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and
society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone,
uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an
undertaking. Jessamyn West
Belief and reader absorption come in the details: An
overturned tricycle in the gutter of an abandoned neighborhood can stand
for everything. Stephen King
Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one. Terry Pratchett
The best thinking has been done in solitude. Thomas Edison
Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman. Virginia Woolf
Poetry: the best words in the best order. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The poet doesn’t invent. He listens. Jean Cocteau
There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money either. Robert Graves
Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. Robert Frost
Breathe in experience, breathe out poetry. Muriel Rukeyser
Prose is architecture, not interior decoration. Ernest Hemingway
Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads. Marianne Moore
Poetry comes from the highest happiness or the deepest sorrow. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks. Plutarch
Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. T. S. Eliot
Not all poetry wants to be storytelling. And not all
storytelling wants to be poetry. But great storytellers and great poets
share something in common: They had something to say, and did. Sarah Kay
Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. Thomas Gray
Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal. T. S. Eliot
A poem is never finished, only abandoned. Paul Valery
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary. Kahlil Gibran
Only the poet can look beyond the detail and see the whole picture. Helen Hayes
Poetry creates the myth, the prose writer draws its portrait. Jean-Paul Sartre
Poetry is an act of peace. Pablo Neruda
Style means the right word. The rest matters little. Jules Renard
I do not over-intellectualise the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story. Tom Clancy
Not a wasted word. This has been a main point to my literary thinking all my life. Hunter S. Thompson
Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear. Ezra Pound
My aim in constructing sentences is to make the sentence
utterly easy to understand, writing what I call transparent prose. I’ve
failed dreadfully if you have to read a sentence twice to figure out
what I meant. Ken Follett
After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world. Philip Pullman
I want the story to have a rhythm that keeps moving
forward. Because that’s the whole point of telling a story. You’re on a
journey — you’re going from here to there. It’s got to move. Ursula K.
Le Guin
Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short. Henry David Thoreau
I have been successful probably because I have always
realized that I knew nothing about writing and have merely tried to tell
an interesting story entertainingly. Edgar Rice Burroughs
Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. Anton Chekhov
And one of [the things you learn as you get older] is,
you really need less… My model for this is late Beethoven. He moves so
strangely and quite suddenly sometimes from place to place in his music,
in the late quartets. He knows where he’s going and he just doesn’t
want to waste all that time getting there. … One is aware of this as one
gets older. You can’t waste time. Ursula K. Le Guin
My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way. Ernest Hemingway
Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart
feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, not your
games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive
element in your style. Stephen King
One of the really bad things you can do to your writing
is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re
maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. Stephen King
When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone.
Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a
story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering
children, but it must be done. Stephen King
Part 1. I notice that you use plain, simple language,
short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English – it
is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and
flowers and verbosity creep in. Mark Twain
Part 2. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t
mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will be valuable.
They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they
are wide apart. Mark Twain
Part 3. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery
habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any
other vice. Mark Twain
All stories have to at least try to explain some small portion of the meaning of life. Gene Weingarten
The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do. Thomas Jefferson
You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page. Jodi Picoult
It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer. Gerald Brenan
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. William Somerset Maugham
Trust your reader, don’t try to describe things. Give a
hint and they will fulfill this hint with their own imagination. Paulo
Coelho
The blizzard doesn’t last forever; it just seems so. Ray Bradbury
Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins.
Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most
of all, endurance. James Baldwin
In a story it’s the scene – the setting / characters /
action / interaction / dialogue / feelings – that makes us hold our
breath, and cry .. and turn the page to find out what happens next. And
so, until the scene ends, each sentence should lead to the next
sentence. Ursula K. Le Guin
Sometimes the ideas just come to me. Other times I have
to sweat and almost bleed to make ideas come. It’s a mysterious process,
but I hope I never find out exactly how it works. I like a mystery, as
you may have noticed. J.K. Rowling
I’ve been writing since I was six. It is a compulsion, so
I can’t really say where the desire came from; I’ve always had it. My
breakthrough with the first book came through persistence, because a lot
of publishers turned it down. J.K. Rowling
Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose
track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps.
Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised. John Steinbeck
As for “Write what you know,” I was regularly told this
as a beginner. I think it’s a very good rule and have always obeyed it. I
write about imaginary countries, alien societies on other planets,
dragons, wizards, the Napa Valley in 22002. I know these things. I know
them better than anybody else possibly could, so it’s my duty to testify
about them. Ursula K. Le Guin
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
writer. Ray Bradbury
The more I’m let alone and not worried the better I can function. Ernest Hemingway
I go out to my little office, where I’ve got a
manuscript, and the last page I was happy with is on top. I read that,
and it’s like getting on a taxiway. I’m able to go through and revise it
and put myself – click – back into that world. Stephen King
When I’m working I work every day, three, four hours, and
I try to get those six pages and I try to get them faily clean. Stephen
King
All my life as a writer I have been committed to the idea
that in fiction the story value holds dominance over every other facet
of the writer’s craft; characterization, theme, mood, none of these
things is anything if the story is dull. And if the story does hold you,
all else can be forgiven. Stephen King
On first drafts: It is completely raw, the sort of thing I
feel free to do with the door shut — it’s the story undressed, standing
up in nothing but its socks and undershorts. Stephen King
Sleep on your writing; take a walk over it; scrutinize it
of a morning; review it of an afternoon; digest it after a meal; let it
sleep in your drawer a twelvemonth; never venture a whisper about it to
your friend, if he be an author especially. Amos Bronson Alcott
It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the
creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book
quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep
in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the
sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything. Virginia
Woolf
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. Annie
Dillard
First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him. Ray Bradbury
I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it. Toni Morrison
There is no friend as loyal as a book. Ernest Hemingway
The dearest ones of time, the strongest friends of the soul — books. Emily Dickinson
The Six Golden Rules of Writing: Read, read, read, and write, write, write. Ernest Gaines
If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. Stephen King
If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time – or the tools – to write. Simple as that. Stephen King
I really think that reading is just as important as
writing when you’re trying to be a writer because it’s the only
apprenticeship we have, it’s the only way of learning how to write a
story. John Green
Reading is important because, if you can read, you can
learn anything about everything and everything about anything. Tomie
dePaola
The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks
on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a
story. Ursula K. Le Guin
You should write because you love the shape of stories
and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing
comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.
Annie Proulx
All readers come to fiction as willing accomplices to
your lies. Such is the basic goodwill contract made the moment we pick
up a work of fiction.
Read, read, read. Read everything – trash, classics, good
and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an
apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write.
If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.
William Faulkner
Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then
see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very
pleasant careers. Ray Bradbury
The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading,
in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one
book. Samuel Johnson
When I graduated from high school I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library 3 days a week for 10 years. Ray Bradbury
Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river. Lisa See
Words create worlds. Pierre du Plessis
Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. Rudyard Kipling
Grammar is a piano I play by ear. All I know about grammar is its power. Joan Didion
I like good words that mean something. Louisa May Alcott
Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. Stephen King
Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most
inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and
remedying it. J.K. Rowling
All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind. Kahlil Gibran
The difference between the almost right word and the
right word is really a large matter — ’tis the difference between the
lightning-bug and the lightning. Mark Twain.
To get the right word in the right place is a rare
achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into
the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize
composition just by itself… Anybody can have ideas – the difficulty is
to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that
ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph. Mark Twain
Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar. E. B. White
All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time. Ernest Hemingway
When a thought takes one’s breath away, a grammar lesson seems an impertinence. Thomas W. Higginson
Being a writer requires an intoxication with language. Jim Harrison
Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own. Carol Burnett
Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, “It might have been”. John Greenleaf Whittier
Words have the power to make things happen. Frederick Buechner
Colors fade, temples crumble, empires fall, but wise words endure. Edward Thorndike
Words can inspire. And words can destroy. Choose yours well. Robin Sharma
A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the other one. Baltasar Gracián
I don’t know the rules of grammar. If you’re trying to
persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you
should use their language. David Ogilvy
Words do not express thoughts very well. They always
become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little
distorted, a little foolish. Hermann Hesse
Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced. Aldous Huxley
Words are containers for power, you choose what kind of power they carry. Joyce Meyer
Your word is the power that you have to create; it is a gift. Don Miguel Ruiz
A poet can survive everything but a misprint. Oscar Wilde
Words are a lens to focus one’s mind. Ayn Rand
I don’t write for children. I write. And somebody says, that’s for children. Maurice Sendak
I don’t want to write for adults. I want to write for
readers who can perform miracles. Only children perform miracles when
they read. Astrid Lindgren
Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. E.B. White
Writing for children is bloody difficult; books for
children are as complex as their adult counterparts, and they should
therefore be accorded the same respect. Mark Haddon
One of the nicest things about writing for children is
that you don’t find them deconstructing novels. Either they like it or
they don’t like it. J.K. Rowling
I didn’t write with a target audience in mind. What
excited me was how much I would enjoy writing about Harry. I never
thought about writing for children ― children’s books chose me. I think
if it is a good book anyone will read it. J.K. Rowling
A writer has the duty to be good, not lousy; true, not
false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to
lift people up, not lower them down. Writers do not merely reflect and
interpret life, they inform and shape life. E.B. White
You have to write the book that wants to be written. And
if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for
children. Madeleine L’Engle
So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads. Dr. Seuss
If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all. Oscar Wilde
Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Henry David Thoreau
What a lot we lost when we stopped writing letters. You can’t reread a phone call. Liz Carpenter
All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened. Ernest Hemingway
A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say. Italo Calvino
Read. Read anything. Read the things they say are good
for you, and the things they claim are junk. You’ll find what you need
to find. Just read. Neil Gaiman
If the book is true, it will find an audience that is meant to read it. Wally Lamb
Grammar is the grave of letters. Elbert Hubbard
Books worth reading are worth re-reading. Holbrook Jackson
A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge. George R. R. Martin
One sure window into a person’s soul is his reading list. Mary B. W. Tabor
A real book is not one that’s read, but one that reads us. W.H. Auden
I cannot live without books. Thomas Jefferson
By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in
history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me
is a miracle. Kurt Vonnegut
To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart. Phyllis Theroux
Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company. Lord Byron
It takes two to write a letter as much as it takes two to make a quarrel. Elizabeth Drew
The one good thing about not seeing you is that I can write you letters. Svetlana Alliluyeva
Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
One of the pleasures of reading old letters is the knowledge that they need no answer. Lord Byron
I hold that the parentheses are by far the most important parts of a non-business letter. D.H. Lawrence
Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. John F. Kennedy
Especially in a time in which the values of reading and
inwardness are so strenuously challenged, literature is freedom. Susan
Sontag
The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame. Oscar Wilde
The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity. Walt Whitman
To write something you have to risk making a fool of yourself. Anne Rice
Every writer I know has trouble writing. Joseph Heller
Writing about a writer’s block is better than not writing at all. Charles Bukowski
Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing. Norman Mailer
The first draft is just you telling yourself the story. Terry Pratchett
We’re professional worriers. You’re constantly imagining things that could go wrong and then writing about them. John Green
A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. Thomas Mann
I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist
whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the
sound he hears within. Gustave Flaubert
I hate writing, I love having written. Dorothy Parker
You can only write regularly if you’re willing to write
badly… Accept bad writing as a way of priming the pump, a warm-up
exercise that allows you to write well. Jennifer Egan
I’ve always said, ‘I have nothing to say, only to add.’
And it’s with each addition that the writing gets done. The first draft
of anything is really just a track. Gore Vidal
Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of job; it’s
always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite
often the blank piece of paper wins. Neil Gaiman
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
The work never matches the dream of perfection the artist has to start with. William Faulkner
Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. E.L. Doctorow
No book can ever be finished. While working on it we
learn just enough to find it immature the moment we turn away from it.
Karl Popper
I just give myself permission to suck. I delete about 90
percent of my first drafts… so it doesn’t really matter much if on a
particular day I write beautiful and brilliant prose that will stick in
the minds of my readers forever, because there’s a 90 percent chance I’m
just gonna delete whatever I write anyway. I find this hugely
liberating. John Green
I am not a great artist, but I have always felt impelled
to write. So each day I sift the sludge anew, going through the cast-off
bits and pieces of observation, of memory, of speculation, trying to
make something out of the stuff that didn’t go through the filter and
down the drain into the subconscious. Stephen King
One thing that helps is to give myself permission to write badly.
I tell myself that I’m going to do my five or 10 pages no matter what,
and that I can always tear them up the following morning if I want. I’ll
have lost nothing — writing and tearing up five pages would leave me no
further behind than if I took the day off. Lawrence Block
We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master. Ernest Hemingway
Anyone who says writing is easy isn’t doing it right. Amy Joy
Writing is a struggle against silence. Carlos Fuentes
You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one. John Wooden
Critics are those who have failed in literature and art. Benjamin Disraeli
The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism. Norman Vincent Peale
If you’re not failing now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative. Woody Allen
I’ve been reading reviews of my stories for twenty-five
years, and can’t remember a single useful point in any of them, or the
slightest good advice. Anton Chekhov
I tell writers to keep reading, reading, reading. Read
widely and deeply. And I tell them not to give up even after getting
rejection letters. And only write what you love. Anita Diamant
Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully
phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the
devil—but there is no way around them. Isaac Asimov
The artist doesn’t have time to listen to the critics.
The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to
write don’t have the time to read reviews. William Faulkner
Was I bitter? Absolutely. Hurt? You bet your sweet ass I
was hurt. Who doesn’t feel a part of their heart break at rejection. You
ask yourself every question you can think of, what, why, how come, and
then your sadness turns to anger. That’s my favorite part. It drives me,
feeds me, and makes one hell of a story. Jennifer Salaiz
I used to save all my rejection slips because I told
myself, one day I’m going to autograph these and auction them. And then I
lost the box. James Lee Burke
I think that you have to believe in your destiny; that
you will succeed, you will meet a lot of rejection and it is not always a
straight path, there will be detours — so enjoy the view. Michael York
I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged. Erica Jong
As a writer, the worst thing you can do is work in an environment of fear of rejection. Carol Leifer
Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing. Aristotle
I could write an entertaining novel about rejection slips, but I fear it would be overly long. Louise Brown
The
first thing you have to learn when you go into the arts is to learn to
cope with rejection. If you can’t, you’re dead. Warren Adler
I had immediate success in the sense that I sold
something right off the bat. I thought it was going to be a piece of
cake and it really wasn’t. I have drawers full of — or I did have —
drawers full of rejection slips. Fred Saberhagen
An absolutely necessary part of a writer’s equipment,
almost as necessary as talent, is the ability to stand up under
punishment, both the punishment the world hands out and the punishment
he inflicts upon himself. Irwin Shaw
To defend what you’ve written is a sign that you are alive. William Zinsser
Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement. C. S. Lewis
The most important things are the hardest things to say. Stephen King
I write to discover what I know. Flannery O’Connor
The joy that isn’t shared dies young. Anne Sexton
The only story that seems worth writing is a cry, a shot, a scream. A story should break the reader’s heart. Susan Sontag
Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it’s the answer to everything…
It’s the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build
up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to
let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower
out of life, even if it’s a cactus. Enid Bagnold
Writers are not here to conform. We are here to
challenge. We’re not here to be comfortable — we’re here, really, to
shake things up. That’s our job. Jeanette Winterson
A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer. Joseph Conrad
Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and
control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that
noise. Philip Roth
It is the writer who might catch the imagination of young
people, and plant a seed that will flower and come to fruition. Isaac
Asimov
Find out the reason that commands you to write; see
whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart;
confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to
write. Rainer Maria Rilke
One writes most of all in order to take part in a collective enterprise. Italo Calvino
Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn’t
matter. I’m not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn’t
make us better, then what on earth is it for. Alice Walker
Writing, the art of communicating thoughts to the mind
through the eye, is the great invention of the world… enabling us to
converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn, at all distances of
time and space. Abraham Lincoln
Yes there is a meaning; at least for me, there is one
thing that matters – to set a chime of words tinkling in the minds of a
few fastidious people. Logan Persall Smith
When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself,
‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some
lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention,
and my initial concern is to get a hearing. George Orwell
The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endue it. Samuel Johnson
Don’t write so that you can be understood, write so that you can’t be misunderstood. William Howard Taft
The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. Anaïs Nin
Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving. Neil Gaiman
In any art you’re allowed to steal anything if you can make it better. Ernest Hemingway
Don’t ever write a novel unless it hurts like a hot turd coming out. Charles Bukowski
If you write what you yourself sincerely think and feel
and are interested in, the chances are very high that you will interest
other people as well. Rachel Carson
Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too. Isabel Allende
The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is.. to help man endure by lifting his heart. William Faulkner
As Neil Gaiman taught me, the best way to defeat writer’s block is to get really bored. Seth Godin
The only environment the artist needs is whatever peace,
whatever solitude, and whatever pleasure he can get at not too high a
cost. William Faulkner
In the wholeheartedness of concentration, world and self
begin to cohere. With that state comes an enlarging: of what may be
known, what may be felt, what may be done. Jane Hirshfield
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and
make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
Kurt Vonnegut
Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a
solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without
temperance. Ralph Waldo Emerson
A poet should be so crafty with words that he is envied even for his pains. Criss Jami
At the end of the day your ability to connect with your readers comes down to how you make them feel. Benjamin J. Carey
At its best, the sensation of writing is that of any
unmerited grace. It is handed to you, but only if you look for it. You
search, you break your heart, your back, your brain, and then — and only
then — it is handed to you. Annie Dillard
To write well about the elegant world you have to know it
and experience it to the depths of your being just as Proust, Radiguet
and Fitzgerald did: what matters is not whether you love it or hate it,
but only to be quite clear about your position regarding it. Italo
Calvino
When you’re trying to create a career as a writer, a little delusional thinking goes a long way. Michael Lewis
There is a great deal that either has to be given up or
be taken away from you if you are going to succeed in writing a body of
work. Susan Sontag
A writer, like an athlete, must ‘train’ every day. What did I do today to keep in ‘form’? Susan Sontag
Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of
the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life. Anne
Lamott
It’s by writing.. by stepping back a bit from the real thing to look at it, that we are most present. Alison Bechdel
Truth that is naked is the most beautiful, and the
simpler its expression the deeper is the impression it makes. Arthur
Schopenhauer
Only a person who is congenially self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays. E.B. White
A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk. Helen Dunmore
You have to finish things — that’s what you learn from, you learn by finishing things. Neil Gaiman
I want my stories to move people… to feel some kind of reward from the writing. Alice Munroe
Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand. Henry Miller
Focus on an obsession that makes you a bit weird.
Make it fun for you and you will find an audience.
It’s never too late to begin a new chapter, add a surprise twist, or change genres entirely.
Listen to other experiences, and start forming questions that you can journal.
If you sit down in a negative state, you will be thinking first and foremost of problems, and not solutions.
The question, ‘what is the worst thing that can happen?’ is a very powerful question.
If someone’s criticism is completely unfounded on data, then I don’t want to hear it. It doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
Bloggers are uniquely positioned to create bestsellers.
The paper is like a photography darkroom for my mind.
It has never been easier to create content
self-published, but it has never been harder to get the attention you
want, or need, to really put something into orbit.
The quality of my writing dropped miserably if I tried to
do more than four hours per day. It’s not necessary to put in 9-5
hours.
I have built my blog traffic and book buzz using mostly offline activities, and I recommend others do the same.
Rather than fight for attention with everyone online,
I’ve focused on attending and speaking at events where bloggers are the
attendees.
Help them somehow, whether commenting well on their blog,
offering advice, or introducing them to other cool folk. (About other
bloggers).
I’m also beginning to realize that you can monetize a
blog without bastardizing your vision, sacrificing editorial purity, or
otherwise “selling out.” There’s no need to sacrifice on either end.
On how to monetize a blog: Step one is understanding your
readers. By this, I mean defining them psychographically and
demographically. What would they buy? Then, it’s a simple matter of
finding advertisers who would pay for “sponsor”-level access to this
market.
On how to monetize a blog: There are certainly other
avenues — affiliate programs, Amazon Associates, etc. — that add
additional revenue with marginal additional effort. Last, and few
bloggers consider this, is launching and offering your own products to
your audience.
Don’t save your best for volume two.
The top stories all polarize people. Do not try to appeal
to everyone. Instead, take a strong stance and polarize people: make
some love you and some hate you.
If you make it threaten people’s 3 Bs — behavior, belief, or belongings — you get a huge virus-like dispersion.
There are more than 200,000 books published each year in
the US, and less than 5% ever sell more than 5,000 copies. On a given
bestseller list, more than 5 spots could be occupied by unbeatable
bestsellers like Good to Great or The Tipping Point, which have been on
the lists for years.
When you’re writing and you start to feel really
uncomfortable, that’s when you know you’re starting to get it right. I’d
imagine that applies to photography. It applies to everything.
You can’t out Fox News Fox News. Timely news-based
content turns life (or business) into a keeping up with the Joneses
nightmare. I focus on evergreen/useful content that is as valuable 6
months from now as it is the day it’s published. It might mean less
immediate traffic, but it means sticky traffic and also Google traffic
that will add up to monstrous traffic later.
For reaching influential people, I think that in-person
is the least crowded and most effective way, because they have to trust
the messenger before they will endorse the message.
People prefer to trust other people, not brands (e.g.
Steve Jobs versus Apple), so I have the advantage of being a
single-person-based media provider. Brands can do this by singling out
killer personalities to drive their brands (e.g. Bobby Flay for Food
Network in the early days). People want to follow humans, not
trademarks. Plan accordingly.
I write about what most excites me and assume that will
hold true for 10,000+ people… if I write about it well. If I get 100
die-hard fans per post like that, I can build an army that will not only
consider buying anything I sell later (assuming high quality — most
critical!), but they’ll also promote my work as trustworthy to other
people. This compounds quickly.
My daily journaling isn’t limited to mornings. I use it as a tool to clarify my thinking and goals.
There are two different journals that I’m currently
using: the five-minute journal, which was created by a reader of mine,
in fact. Really, really helpful for setting the tone and focus for the
day. And then morning pages, which is really just a free-association
exercise — good way to trap your monkey-mind on paper so it doesn’t
distract you and sabotage you for the rest of the day.
I’m just caging my monkey mind on paper so I can get on with my fucking day.
