People who want to write books do so because they feel it to be the easiest thing they can do. They can read and write, they can afford any of the instruments of book writing such as pens, paper, computers, tape recorders, and generally by the time they have reached this decision, they have had a simple education.

~ Muriel Spark

Muriel Spark Writing Writing Advice Writing Books Writing Process

It's basically an act of faith, hoping that a small idea will unspool into a bigger whole. Sometimes, in fact often, it doesn't and it just runs out of steam. The hope for me is that it will snowball. the best way to put it is that I have no particular method or technique per se, other than this: I plan nothing, I outline nothing, I start with an idea or an image or a line of dialogue and see where it leads me. Because I never know what the next page will contain, let alone the end of the book, I am perpetually surprised by the course that my characters take. The writing process is as full of surprises and twists for me as the reading experience is for my readers. I love the spontaneity of writing this way, the possibilities left open, the feeling that I am not constrained or committed to any given path. Every day, I am surprised by something. It may not be the most efficient way of writing, but it has served me well thus far.

~ Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini Writing Writing Advice Writing Process

Novels were not arguments; a story worked, or it didn't, on its own merits. What did it matter if a detail was real or imagined? What mattered was that the detail seemed real, and that it was absolutely the best detail for the circumstance. That wasn't much of a theory, but it was all Ruth could truly commit herself to at the moment. It was time to retire that old lecture, and her penance was to endure the compliments of her former credo.

~ John Irving

John Irving Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Process

Don't fool yourself. Talking about writing is not the same as actually doing it.

~ Christy Hall

Christy Hall Writers On Writing Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Process

If you are serious, and you want to make a living as an author, then you need to hustle. Period. If you can't make that quality, then you need to concentrate on your craft and practice more. One other thing, quality comes with practice. If you are prolific, then you become a better writer because you are writing. The more you do anything the better at it you will become. So in a way, quantity does add to quality.

~ Larry Correia

Larry Correia Writing Writing Advice Writing Books Writing Craft Writing Process

Q: Do you have any advice for upcoming writers who want to pen weird stories?A: READ, damn it. Fill your brain to the bursting point with the good stuff, starting with writers that you truly enjoy, and then work your way backward and outward, reading those writers who inspired the writers you love best. That was my path as far as Weird/Horror Fiction, starting with Lovecraft, and then working my way backward/outward on the Weird Fiction spiderweb. And don’t limit your reading. Read it all, especially non-fiction and various news outlets. You’d be surprised by how many of my story ideas were born while listening to NPR, perusing a blog, or paging through Vanity Fair.Once you have your fuel squared away, just write what you love, in whatever style and genre. You’ll never have fun being someone you’re not, so be yourself. When a singer opens their mouth, what comes out is what comes out.Also, don’t be afraid to fail, and don’t be afraid to walk away. Writing isn’t for everyone, and that’s totally fine. One doesn’t need to be a writer to enjoy being a reader and overall fan of genre or wider fiction.

~ T.e. Grau

T.e. Grau Writing Advice Writing Process

In quickness is truth. The more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping.

~ Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing From The Heart Writing Process

Get your story written, you always have the second and third draft to fix things like tense, 1st vs 3rd person, the exact right word, etc.

~ Andromeda Edison

Andromeda Edison Writing Writing Advice Writing Process

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.

~ Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki Self Publishing Writing Writing Advice Writing Process

Poetic license is not a license to scribe recklessly.

~ C. Kennedy

C. Kennedy Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Humor Writing Philosophy Writing Process

It takes courage to violate expectations, but sometimes the reward is a new level of success.

~ Donald Maass

Donald Maass Courage Innovation Writing Writing Advice

Beware of advice—even this.

~ Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg Inspirational Quotes True Writing Advice

Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy. ...this book...is a permission slip: you can, you should, and if you're brave enough to start, you will. Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.

~ Stephen King

Stephen King Inspirational Writers On Writing Writing Advice Writing From The Heart Writing Philosophy

Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:Fool! said my muse to me, look in thy heart, and write.

~ Philip Sidney

Philip Sidney Inspirational Writers Block Writers On Writing Writing Advice

A rain forest springs from the droppings of animals and grows greater than any cultivated garden; likewise, a great mass of literary skill springs from the droppings of writers that cross our minds through the reading we do.

~ Agona Apell

Agona Apell Literary Quotes Writers On Writing Writing Advice Writing Quotes

Writers don't suffer from insanity, they depend upon it!

~ Avijeet Das

Avijeet Das Insanity Quotes On Life Quotes On Writing Writers Inspiration Writers Life Writers On Writing Writers Quotes Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Philosophy

A writer must expect other people to criticize their work and open-mindedly consider all worthwhile suggestions. Martial arts master Bruce Lee advised anyone attempting to master a difficult enterprise to learn from other people but also liberally experiment and judiciously draw from our own well of intelligence and talent. ‘Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Kilroy J. Oldster Learning From Experiences Learning Process Writers On Writing Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Quotes Writing Tips

But if you needed to HAVE AN IDEA, boredom could be to a roadblocked novel what chemotherapy was to a cancer patient.

~ Stephen King

Stephen King Writers On Writing Writing Writing Advice

Often as writers, we are surprised by what we learn about ourselves. It runs counter to what we’ve thought about who we are. But it is closer to the truth.

~ Rob Bignell

Rob Bignell Journal Writing Journaling Journals Journals Diaries Writers On Writing Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft

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

~ Rob Bignell

Rob Bignell Writers Block Writers Inspiration Writers On Writing Writers Quotes Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Inspiration

When I told my teachers I wanted to be a writer, alot of them encouraged me to lower my expectations and to be more realistic. So I rode away on my magical, winged horse, spraying faerie dust behind me, and laughing manically as I went.

~ M.e. Vaughan

M.e. Vaughan Dyslexia Dyslexic Inspirational Quotes Writers On Writing Writers Quotes Writing Advice Writing Inspiration Writing Philosophy Writing Quotes

Write for impact first, money second. If you do it the other way around, you’ll end up with less of either.

~ Don Roff

Don Roff Impact Money Writers On Writing Writers Quotes Writing Writing Advice

When you have something meaningful to say, you lose your desire for much grammar; for only in the incompetence of words does one seek the redeeming power of vocabulary.

~ King Samuel Benson

King Samuel Benson Writers On Writing Writing Advice Writing Philosophy

You will not publish 100% of the books you don’t write.

~ M. Kirin

M. Kirin Inspiration Writer Inspiration Writers On Writing Writing Writing Advice

There is no ceremony, no initiation ritual, no secret hand-shake. All you need to be a writer is to write.

~ M. Kirin

M. Kirin Inspiration Writer Inspiration Writers On Writing Writing Writing Advice

You have to be in your middle thirties before you have anything worth saying.

~ Peter Bowen

Peter Bowen Anything To Be A Great Writer Worth Saying Writers On Writing Writing Writing Advice

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.

~ M. Kirin

M. Kirin Inspiration Writer Inspiration Writers On Writing Writing Writing Advice

It's good to write badly. Things can only get better.

~ Alan Dapre

Alan Dapre Author Quotes Drafting Humour Writers On Writing Writing Advice Writing Craft

Tell it fast before you get scared and silence yourself. You’ll never wish you’d held back a little more.

~ Catherynne M. Valente

Catherynne M. Valente Writers On Writing Writing Advice

Biographies are best when written chronologically. Boring people don't make for good biographies.

~ Deana J. Driver

Deana J. Driver Biographies Non Fiction Books Non Fiction Books Inspirational Writers On Writing Writing Writing Advice

Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts.

~ Harper Lee

Harper Lee Writing Advice

Write without pay until somebody offers to pay.

~ Mark Twain

Mark Twain On Writing Writing Advice

Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that - but you are the only you.Tarantino - you can criticize everything that Quentin does - but nobody writes Tarantino stuff like Tarantino. He is the best Tarantino writer there is, and that was actually the thing that people responded to - they’re going ‘this is an individual writing with his own point of view’.There are better writers than me out there, there are smarter writers, there are people who can plot better - there are all those kinds of things, but there’s nobody who can write a Neil Gaiman story like I can.

~ Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman Inspirational Writing Advice

A man's grammar, like Caesar's wife, should not only be pure, but above suspicion of impurity.

~ Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe Grammar Writing Advice

It's a great lesson about not being too precious about your writing. You have to try your hardest to be at the top of your game and improve every joke you can until the last possible second, and then you have to let it go. You can't be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it...You have to let people see what you wrote.

~ Tina Fey

Tina Fey Writing Advice

The true writer, the born writer, will scribble words on scraps of litter, the back of a bus tickets, on the wall of a cell.

~ David Nicholls

David Nicholls Inspirational Motivating Writing Advice

Don't look back until you've written an entire draft, just begin each day from the last sentence you wrote the preceding day. This prevents those cringing feelings, and means that you have a substantial body of work before you get down to the real work which is all in ... the

~ Will Self

Will Self Creative Process Writing Writing Advice

about clichés. Avoid them like the plague.

~ Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini Cliché Writing Advice

Don't let yourself slip and get any perfect characters... keep them people, people, people, and don't let them get to be symbols.

~ Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway Writing Advice

There are two moments worthwhile in writing, the one when you start and the other when you throw it in the waste-paper basket.

~ Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett Composition Writing Advice Writing Philosophy
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