People who think that grammar is just a collection of rules and restrictions are wrong. If you get to like it, grammar reveals the hidden meaning of history, hides disorder and abandonment, links things and brings opposites together. Grammar is a wonderful way of organising the world how you'd like it to be.

~ Delphine De Vigan

Delphine De Vigan Writing Process

Anyone moderately familiar with the rigours of composition will not need to be told the story in detail, how he wrote and it seemed good, read and it seemed vile, corrected and tore up, cut out, put in, was in ecstasy, in despair, had his good nights and bad mornings, snatched at ideas and lost them, saw his book plain before him and it vanished, acted people's parts as he ate, mouthed them as he walked, now cried, now laughed, vacillated between this style and that, now preferred the heroic and pompous, next the plain and simple, now the vales of Tempe, then the fields of Kent or Cornwall, and could not decide whether he was the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world.

~ Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf Writing Process

The difference between wanting to write and having written is one year of hard, relentless labour. It's a bridge you have to build all by yourself, all alone, all through the night, while the world goes about its business without giving a damn. The only way of making this perilous passage is by looking at it as a pilgrimage.

~ Shatrujeet Nath

Shatrujeet Nath Aspiring Authors Aspiring Writers On Writing A Book Writing Advice Writing Process

In the final exam in the Chaucer course we were asked why he used certain verbal devices, certain adjectives, why he had certain characters behave in certain ways. And I wrote, 'I don't think Chaucer had any idea why he did any of these things. That isn't the way people write.'I believe this as strongly now as I did then. Most of what is best in writing isn't done deliberately.

~ Madeleine L'engle

Madeleine L'engle Writing Process

Well, writing novels is incredibly simple: an author sits down…and writes.Granted, most writers I know are a bit strange.Some, downright weird.But then again, you’d have to be.To spend hundreds and hundreds of hours sitting in front of a computer screen staring at lines of information is pretty tedious. More like a computer programmer. And no matter how cool the Matrix made looking at code seem, computer programmers are even weirder than authors.

~ Christopher Hopper

Christopher Hopper Authors Computer Science Strangeness Weirdness Writing Process

Don't worry about what you're writing or whether it's good or even whether it makes sense.

~ Lauren Oliver

Lauren Oliver Nanowrimo Writing Process

A short story I have written long ago would barge into my house in the middle of the night, shake me awake and shout, 'Hey,this is no time for sleeping! You can't forget me, there's still more to write!' Impelled by that voice, I would find myself writing a novel. In this sense, too, my short stories and novels connect inside me in a very natural, organic way.

~ Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami Novels Short Stories Writing Process

Maybe that's when bad scripts are written, when you choose the theme first. I consider that I've something to say when I've thought of a person, a moment, a single beat of the heart, that I think is true and interesting, and therefore should be seen.

~ Russell T. Davies

Russell T. Davies Professionals Writing Process

Working on it.

~ Paul Aertker

Paul Aertker Kids Books Kids Humor Writers On Writing Writing Process

I had found by experience that putting things down on paper helped to clear the mind in precisely the same way, as Mrs. Mullet had taught me, that an eggshell clarifies the consommé or the coffee, which, of course, is a simple matter of chemistry. The albumin contained in the eggshell has the property of collecting and binding the rubbish that floats in the dark liquid, which can then be removed and discarded in a single reeking clot: a perfect description of the writing process.

~ Alan Bradley

Alan Bradley Chemistry Humor Writing Process

I write not because I want to but because I am destined to.

~ Jules Haigler

Jules Haigler Inspirational Writing Process

I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day.

~ Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway Writing Craft Writing Process

(Dorothy) Dunnett is the master of the invisible, particularly in her later books. Where is this tension coming from? Why is this scene so agonizing? Why is this scene so emotional? Tension and emotion pervade the books, sometimes almost unbearably, yet when you look at the writing, at the actual words, there's nothing to show that the scene is emotional at all. I think it is because Dunnett layers her novels, meaning that each event is informed by what has come before (and what came before that, and what came before that) but Dunnett doesn't signpost in the text that this is happening, leaving it to the reader to bring the relevant information to the table

~ C.s. Pacat

C.s. Pacat Dorothy Dunnett Tension Writing Process

There are three secrets to writing a novel. Unfortunately nobody knows what they are.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

W. Somerset Maugham Novels Writing Process

I do not plan my fiction any more than I normally plan woodland walks; I follow the path that seems most promising at any given point, not some itinerary decided before entry.

~ John Fowles

John Fowles Writing Novels Writing Process

The only 'ironclad rules' in writing fiction are the laws of physics and the principles of grammar, and even those can be bent.

~ Val Kovalin

Val Kovalin Writing Advice Writing Craft Writing Process

Mailer famously labeled writing the spooky art. He was right. There's a lot of frontal lobe blather, a lot of pencil-sharpening and knuckle-cracking and drafting and chat, but the big decisions are made in the locked subconscious, decisions not just on the writing but on the conditions for writing: I resolve on the one story I've never told and lo! Here I sit, holed up in a house that means nothing to me, bone-certain no other places will do. Art, even the humble autobiographer's, invokes occult necessities.

~ Glen Duncan

Glen Duncan Writing Process

Today’s tangents will become tomorrow’s arcs, and unforeseen connections will tie up your loose ends in a way that will make you want to slap your head and holler at your accidental brilliance.

~ Chris Baty

Chris Baty Arcs Tangents Writing Writing Process

Don't over edit. Don't second-guess yourself, or your ideas. Just write. Write every day, and keep at it. Don't get discouraged with the rejections. Tape them up on your office wall, to remind you of all the hard work you put in when you finally start getting published! It's all about persistence and passion. And have fun with it. Don't forget to have fun.

~ Heather Grace Stewart

Heather Grace Stewart Rejections Writing Craft Writing Process

Also, I do seem attracted to trash, as if the clue--the clue--lies there. I'm always ferreting out elliptical points, odd angles. What I write doesn't make a whole lot of sense. There is fun and religion and psychotic horror strewn about like a bunch of hats. Also, there is a social or sociological drift--rather than toward the hard sciences, the overall impression is childish but interesting.

~ Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick Writing Process

It was the worst--the bleakest, the most physically exhausting, the most emotionally enervating--writing experience I'd had...I felt, and feared, that the book was controlling me, somehow, as if I'd somehow become possessed by it.

~ Hanya Yanagihara

Hanya Yanagihara Writing Writing Process Writing Quotes

I like to think I’ve written something worth reading when I cry the tears of the characters.

~ Carla H. Krueger

Carla H. Krueger Emotional Intelligence Putting In Your Best Realistic Fiction Writing Craft Writing From The Heart Writing Process Writing Quotes

The skill of writing needs much patience, practicing, and time. There is no good writing from a quick effort, or a confused writer.

~ Maryam Abdullah Alnaymi

Maryam Abdullah Alnaymi Writing Advice Writing Process Writing Quotes Writing Tips

Well, I like him. There’s a darkness to him. But does he make it all the way through?”She shrugged. “It’s entirely up to him.”“What do you mean?” He smiled quizzically at her.“Characters talk to you. Transform. Make choices,” she replied.“Choices,” he echoed.“Of who they become.

~ Nancy Holder

Nancy Holder Writing Writing Advice Writing Process

When I am writing a novel, the setting, the characters, the action is clear in mind when I start -- so I believe. But it is only when these imaginings are written down, passing it seems almost physically from my brain down the arm to my moving hand that they begin to live and move and have their being and assume a different kind of truth.

~ P.d. James

P.d. James Writing Process

A chef’s magic is his ingredients, how he can substitute one for another, then break with convention by changing it all around again without once referring to the recipe. And then just at the death complete the beauty by adding another element never previously thought of. Well words are the writer’s sorcery, our dark arts and our sleight of hand. They’re our enchantment and our temptation. Sometimes both the chef and the writer overindulges himself and it gets out of hand, but that’s how we like it, it’s how we’ve ghosted some of our best creations.

~ Karl Wiggins

Karl Wiggins Chef Chefs Cooking Cooking Quotes Writing Writing Philosophy Writing Process Writing Quotes

When you hurt one of your characters and then type faster to finish a scene while saying, I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!

~ A.r. Fagundes

A.r. Fagundes Character Building Writing Process Writing Quotes

By applying their observational abilities along with full appliance of their logic and creative powers, writers attempt to create mental maps to share with other people regarding what they learned, think, and believe. The writer’s vision can sway readers emotional state and in doing influence what they believe and how they behave.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Kilroy J. Oldster Communication Skills Writers On Thinking Writers On Writing Writers On Writing Books Writing Writing Process

It’s one of those times when the question is its own answer…. The writing is itself the solution to the inability to write!

~ Yael Shahar

Yael Shahar Inspirational Writers And Writing Writing Process

Personal essay writing is analogous to undertaking a vision quest, a potential turning point in life taken to discover intimate personal truths, form complex abstract thoughts, and ascertain the intended spiritual direction of a person’s life.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Kilroy J. Oldster Essay Essay Writing Essayist Essays Personal Essay Personal Essays Vision Quest Writers On Thinking Writing Writing Philosophy Writing Process

When entering a library, I never forget to bow down!

~ Avijeet Das

Avijeet Das Books Quotes Bow Down Library Quote Life Quotes Inspirational Quotes Reading Books Reading For Life Reading Quotes Writers Life Writers On Writing Writers World Writing Process

You only fail if you stop writing.RAY BRADBURY

~ Sue Ward Drake

Sue Ward Drake Writing Process

As you write your novel, you gradually start thinking like some of your characters in it. And at times the writer may lose himself completely in some character.

~ Avijeet Das

Avijeet Das Characters In Novels Novel Writing Novelist Novelist And Poet Novelist Quotes Quotes On Writing Writers On Writing Writers On Writing Books Writing Craft Writing Process

It's a terrible mistake to let the perfect get in the way of the good. If you wait to publish until you have written a great book, you will never publish anything. Great books happen by chance, not by design. The wise writer writes the best he can and leaves it to posterity to decide about greatness.

~ Andrew M Greeley

Andrew M Greeley Writers On Writing Writing Advice Writing Process

At times you have to fight really hard to remember it. Fight within your mind’s dungeons and bring it out alive before it could have been killed and buried forever by the demons living deep down inside your mind’s dungeons.

~ Avijeet Das

Avijeet Das Creativity Quotes Demons Dungeons Memories Quotes Philosophy Quotes Poetry Writers On Writing Writers Quotes Writing Process

A writer must be willing to leave oneself behind in order to explore new territories of the mind and unearth primordial truths that startle and frighten us.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Kilroy J. Oldster Self Discovery Self Discovery Quotes Writing Writing Process

Write what you wish with your soul and your heart will fill the page with your unique magic.

~ Ben Tolosa

Ben Tolosa Writers On Writing Writing Writing Advice Writing Process Writing Quotes

I think that writing should be honest and simple, and it should say something about what it means to be a person. When God is good to us, we write in such a way that the act of reading becomes a pleasure to those who buy our books.

~ M.v. Carey

M.v. Carey Writers On Writing Writing Writing Process

Young people ask why I became a writer, as if it were something I decided. I didn't decide; it grew on me like ivy.

~ M.v. Carey

M.v. Carey Writers On Writing Writing Writing Process

More and more I don't have any philosophy about writing, except that it is something we can do if God is good to us. Of course we are the ones who have to do the paperwork.

~ M.v. Carey

M.v. Carey Writers On Writing Writing Writing Process
Load More classy quote icon