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You have to surrender to your mediocrity, and just write. Because it's hard, really hard, to write even a crappy book. But it's better to write a book that kind of sucks rather than no book at all, as you wait around to magically become Faulkner. No one is going to write your book for you and you can't write anybody's book but your own.
Cheryl StrayedI can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.
A. J. LieblingThe scene that scares you the most, that you don't want to write because it's the most difficult to write-that's the one you have to write. So I think when people have writer's block, it's because what they have to write scares them. And that's usually the heart of the book.
Marcy DermanskyEarly on my career, I figured out that I just have to write the book I have to write at that moment. Whatever else is going on in the culture is just not that important. If you could get the culture to write your book, that would be great. But the culture can't write your book.
Colson WhiteheadJust write a little bit every day. Even if it's for only half an hour โ write, write, write.
Madeleine L'EngleI've always loved opera; it never occurred to me that I would write a proper libretto. One of my closest friends is a composer, Paul Moravec, and a few years ago, Paul and I were at lunch, and I said to him, "you really have to write an opera." So, he says very casually to me, "I'll do it if you write the libretto." Well, little did I know that the within a couple of years we would end up getting a commission from the Santa Fe Opera to write an opera together, "The Letter," which turned out to be the most successful commissioned opera in the history of the Santa Fe Opera.
Terry TeachoutI had a lot of great lakes of ignorance that I was up against, I would write what I knew in almost like islands that were rising up out of the oceans. Then I would take time off and read, sometimes for months, then I would write more of what I knew, and saw what I could see, as much as the story as I could see. And then at a certain point I had to write out what I thought was the plot because it was so hard to keep it all together in my head. And then I started to write in a more linear way.
Rebecca MillerWhatever you have lived, you can write & by hard work & a genuine apprenticeship, you can learn to write well; but what you have not lived you cannot write, you can only pretend to write it.
Mark TwainItalian is a very different poetic situation and there are these hard and fast rhythmic periods, settenari, ottonari of seven and eight syllables. These are fundamental to the way people speak and write and breaking them is more radical in Italian than when we break a line. I'm sure there are Italian poets who want to write poetry as prose and break these Petrarchan rules. And breaking them is fun and a valid thing to do. But I'm more interested in trying to write poetry that absorbs tradition and uses it in new ways, and doesn't throw it out.
Jonathan W. GalassiThe best training is to read and write, no matter what. Don't live with a lover or roommate who doesn't respect your work. Don't lie, buy time, borrow to buy time. Write what will stop your breath if you don't write.
Grace PaleyI wanted to be a writer that had an impact. I wanted, and still I say the same thing, I want to write books that change people's lives, change how we think and live and read and write. I wanna write books that are read in 50 or 100 years.
James FreyIt's just like I get this identity crisis: my body doesn't want to write, my mind doesn't want to write. Nothing about me wants to write, but I force myself to sit there and try. Nothing happens.
Luke TempleWrite letters to your editors, write to your members of Congress, and write to your news stations.
Nicholas D. KristofA song that sounds simple is just not that easy to write. One of the objectives of this record was to try and write melodies that continue to resonate...Everything that happens to you influences your writing...The writing process for me is pretty much always the same-it's a solitary experience...I have yet to write that one song that defines my career...Beck said he didn't believe in the theory of a song coming through you as if you were an open vessel. I agree with him to a certain extent.
Sheryl CrowIn order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book.
Junot DiazI write a tiny fraction of what I used to write. My only job used to be to just write songs, and that was a really nice job to have, but only a tiny amount of people heard those songs, and I didn't make a living from it, and eventually I begged my parents to let me move back into my room.
Regina SpektorIt's rare that I'll write lyrics first. If I come up with some good lyrics, I'll write them down and try to use them later. If I come up with a song title, sometimes I'll write a song based on that. Sometimes, I'll make a whole band out of it. I don't really have a process, per se. I just keep going and going and going. Every free minute I have I'm working.
Rob CrowI don't know why I write. The honest answer is that I don't have an answer. I wouldn't die if I couldn't write fiction. Actually keel over and die - it's unlikely. But quite quickly writing has come to feel like the only thing I really know how to do. And I go a bit stir crazy if I don't write more or less every day. But that makes writing sound like a mood-regulator, a way to regulate anxiety or depression, and it doesn't really come down to that.
Katie KitamuraThere are only two kinds of stories in the world: those about which I do not care to write as many as 600 words, and those about which I would like to write many more than 600 words. But there is nothing about which I would like to write exactly 600 words.
David HalberstamI have a notebook that I take with me everywhere. I free-write in it when there are situations that I know I can write a song about. I will just start writing everything that I can think of while trying to write some things that are kind of poetic or sound like they could be in a song. Then, after the music is written, I go back and look at my subjects to see which one I think woud go with what music. Then, I formulate it into a melody and get the song.
Agent MThe important thing is not what we write but how we write, and in my opinion the modern writer must be an adventurer above all, willing to take every risk, and be prepared to founder in his effort if need be. In other words we must write dangerously
James JoyceThe desire to be liked is acceptable in real life but very problematic in fiction. Pleasantness is the enemy of good fiction. I try to write on the premise that no one is going to read my work. Because there's this terrible impulse to grovel before the reader, to make them like you, to write with the reader in mind in that way. It prevents you doing work that is ugly or upsetting or difficult. The temptation is to not be true to what you want to write and to be considerate or amusing instead. I'm always trying to fight against the impulse to make my readers like me.
Katie KitamuraI started writing by doing small related things but not the thing itself, circling it and getting closer. I had no idea how to write fiction. So I did journalism because there were rules I could learn. You can teach someone to write a news story. They might not write a great one, but you can teach that pretty easily.
Amy HempelIn music industry they always want you to write something like the one that was popular. And that's something you kind of have to just - sometimes you just say yes to people, like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure," and then you just write the one you want to write.
Benji MaddenI love to write and I assure you I write regularly... But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it.
J. D. SalingerI like to write for actors I know and with whom I've worked before. You can write to their strengths and weaknesses and write roles that are better suited to them.
Michael HanekeI think I was probably able to flip characters in my head as if I was playing different roles in order to write the different people because you kind of have to be one person, and inhabit him and write from his voice and be her and write her voice. So I think that helped.
Angelina JolieShaw...has a woman ever asked you to write a poem for her?" "Good God, no," Gideon replied with a snicker. "Shaws don't write poetry. They pay others to write it for them and then take the credit for it.
Lisa KleypasWhen I first started writing, there was no way I'd write a sex scene. That just seemed impossible. That's why in "Fight Club" all the sex happens off-screen. It's all just a noise on the other side of the wall or the ceiling. I just couldn't bring to write in a scene like that. So one of the challenges with "Choke" was I wanted to write sex scenes until I was really comfortable just writing them in a very mechanical way.
Chuck PalahniukWhen I write a book, I write very cleanly from page one to the last page. I hardly ever write out of sequence.
Gregory MaguireI taught elementary school and painted apartments for ten years. Now I write full-time and never have to change a thing I write. Every book comes to me in a flash of inspiration and takes me about two seconds to finish. The longer books, like the Time Warp Trio novels, take a little longer to write - more like four seconds.
Jon ScieszkaThoughts are created in the act of writing. [It is a myth that] you must have something to say in order to write. Reality: You often need to write in order to have anything to say. Thought comes with writing, and writing may never come if it is postponed until we are satisfied that we have something to say...The assertion of write first, see what you had to say later applies to all manifestations of written language, to letters...as well as to diaries and journals
Frank SmithAdvertising is a business of words, but advertising agencies are infested with men and women who cannot write. They cannot write advertisements, and they cannot write plans. They are helpless as deaf mutes on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.
David OgilvyI write incessantly, I'm very productive, I write for a dozen publications and blogs and websites. A lot of very hardcore political stuff. I write a weekly feature. I express myself. But when time comes to make music [with the] same absolutely unleashing of total honesty zero inhibitions, it just flows like a stream of conscientiousness because I will not be silenced no matter what my point might be.
Ted NugentThe best emotions to write out of are anger and fear or dread. The least energizing emotion to write out of is admiration. It is very difficult to write out of because the basic feeling that goes with admiration is a passive contemplative mood.
Susan SontagWhat's so crazy is when you give interviews to reporters that don't really care too much for you, basically what they're going to do is write what they want to write and discredit you. They're going to write and say what they want to say, no matter what you tell them.
Floyd Mayweather, Jr.Write first. Worry about getting an agent or publisher later. Write it first. Prove you can do it and then others will listen. Tons of people talk about books they want to write. Far fewer are those who actually complete that vision. Donโt be a talker.
Po BronsonI've never invested myself properly in trying to write stories. When I write lyrics, mostly I write each sentence separately on an index card and then I lay them out and I just mix them up.
Jason SchwartzmanSome things are hard to write about. After something happens to you, you go to write it down, and either you over dramatize it, or underplay it, exaggerate the wrong parts or ignore the important ones. At any rate, you never write it quite the way you want to.
Sylvia PlathIt's hard enough to write a good drama, it's much harder to write a good comedy, and it's hardest of all to write a drama with comedy. Which is what life is.
Jack LemmonI write against violence. I write against fascism. I write against one person dominating another.
Timothy FindleyIf you can't think of what to write, tough luck; write anyway. If you can think of lots more when you've finished the three pages, don't write it; it'll be that much easier to get going next day.
Philip PullmanI found that many gifted people are so afraid of writing a poor story that they cannot summon the nerve to write a single sentence for months. The thing to say to such people is: "See how *bad* a story you can write. See how dull you can be. Go ahead. That would be fun and interesting. I will give you ten dollars if you can write something thoroughly dull from beginning to end!" And of course, no one can.
Brenda UelandI don't have any regrets, really, except that one. I wanted to write about you, about us, really. Do you know what I mean? I wanted to write about everything, the life we're having and the lives we might have had. I wanted to write about all the ways we might have died.
Michael CunninghamI tend to write things and review it afterwards and realise what comes out. I very rarely ever write something and have to take it back.
Ellie Goulding