quotations about writing
I'm a pretty autobiographical writer. I like a high ratio of true events to made-up events or rearranged events. I've always felt that if you think you can find a way to tell the truth and keep the fictional flux going, it's at least a good idea to try, because very often the truth is more interesting than the posed picture, the tableau. The messiness of truth is a useful corrective.
NICHOLSON BAKER
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The Paris Review, fall 2011
The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.
ALBERT CAMUS
attributed, 2012: Waking of the Prophets
[Rejection] made me quit writing once. For six months. I started up again when my then seven-year-old son asked me to start writing again because I was too grumpy when I wasn't writing.
KIRBY LARSON
interview, Author Turf, March 6, 2014
Most writer zombies don't realize they are the undead, because they do just enough to convince themselves (and others) that they are actual writers. They talk a lot about writing -- boy, are writer zombies great talkers -- going on for hours about the screenplay or pilot they're supposedly writing or will write once they have the time. They also read writing books and blogs and take seminars because that makes them feel like they are in the game. And they take classes, especially those that impose short-term deadlines, because that gets them writing, which makes them feel alive. But once the class is over, they almost always go back to their zombie ways.
COREY MANDELL
"Beware the Writing Zombies", Huffington Post, February 25, 2016
We need the expressive arts, the ancient scribes, the storytellers, the priests. And that's where I put myself: as a storyteller. Not necessarily a high priestess, but certainly the storyteller. And I would love to be the storyteller of the tribe.
TANITH LEE
"Love & Death & Publishers", Locus Magazine, April 1998
There is no ideal length, but you develop a little interior gauge that tells you whether or not you're supporting the house or detracting from it. When a piece gets too long, the tension goes out of it. That word--tension--has an animal insistence for me. A piece of writing rises and falls with tension. The writer holds one end of the rope and the reader holds the other end--is the rope slack, or is it tight? Does it matter to the reader what the next sentence is going to be?
JOHN JEREMIAH SULLIVAN
"Everything is more complicated than you think", The Economist, November 14, 2011
Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.
CYRIL CONNOLLY
The New Statesman, February 25, 1933
It is usual that the moment you write for publication--I mean one of course--one stiffens in exactly the same way one does when one is being photographed. The simplest way to overcome this is to write it to someone, like me. Write it as a letter aimed at one person. This removes the vague terror of addressing the large and faceless audience and it also, you will find, will give a sense of freedom and a lack of self-consciousness.
JOHN STEINBECK
The Paris Review, fall 1975
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.
JOHN GREEN
"Nov. 26th: Writing Advice (And Notes on Surnameless Tiffany)", YouTube
All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
undated letter to his daughter "Scottie"
Things that you write are in some degree autobiographical, but the first thing you find out about autobiography is that it's the hardest thing in the world to write. It's hard because it's very difficult to be absolutely factual about yourself. So ... when you write, you may draw on facts from your own life, but if their not in harmony with your story, they're worse than useless. You just stumble over them.
SAUL BELLOW
Q & A at Howard Community College, February 1986
Sometimes I think that my best writing comes from exposing my fears and vulnerabilities and hoping that nobody notices it's about me.
VICTORIA LAURIE
Twitter post, October 13, 2014
The process of creating is related to the process of dreaming although when you are writing you're doing it and when you're dreaming, it's doing you.
ROBERT STONE
attributed, A Writer's Book of Days
My father really taught me that you really develop the habit of writing and you sit down at the same time every day, you don't wait for inspiration. You sit down, it helps your subconscious understand that it's time to start writing and to relax down into that well of dream material and memory and imagination. So, I sit down at the exact same time every day. And I let myself write really awful first drafts of things. I take very short assignments; I will capture for myself in a few words what I'm going to be trying to do that morning, or in that hour. Maybe I'm going to write a description of the lake out in Inverness in West Marin, where I live. And so I try to keep things really small and manageable. I have a one-inch picture frame on my desk so I can remember that that's all I'm going to be able to see in the course of an hour or two, and then I just let myself start and it goes really badly most mornings; as it does for most writers.
ANNE LAMOTT
interview, Big Think, April 6, 2010
This is our goal as writers, I think; to help others have this sense of--please forgive me--wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break in on our small, bordered worlds.
ANNE LAMOTT
Bird by Bird
Human nature provides the lyrics, and we novelists just compose the music.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
"An interview with Carlos Ruiz Zafon", Book Browse
Writing is creative, which is right brain activity. Editing is rational, logical and process/rule driven, which is left-brain activity. It seems that, if you switch consistently between the two, the creative process becomes derailed by all the rules and forms. You scare it back into the shadows.
DAVID CHISLETT
"Editing Is Not Writing", Books LIVE, February 12, 2016
Writing groups are the best things to happen to a writer since the invention of spell check. (I rely heavily on both so I would know.)
DASHA FAYVINOVA
"9 Reasons Joining A Writing Group Is One Of The Best Ways A Writer Can Grow", Bustle, February 8, 2016
Writers cannot let themselves be servants of the official mythology. They have to, whatever the cost, say what truth they have to say.
TOBIAS WOLFF
Continuum, summer 1998
Writing, in whatever form, is your own personal progress report. There's nothing I love more than curling up with tea and reading back over my past, error-riddled posts. It's an indescribable connection that you simply can't get from a photo or memory alone. Think of it as the only true insight your future self has into you, as you are today. Blog for yourself and the rest will follow.
BIANCA BASS
"Why You Should Write (Even If It Feels Like Nobody Is Listening)", Huffington Post, February 29, 2016