The Process Quotes
The challenge of the writer is to transform—artistically and imaginatively—a unique personal experience into a universal, meaningful story.
There's nothing more intoxicating than creating something from nothing. Creating something from yourself." Professor Piper
Rather than feeling that every moment you’ve got to exert this enormous control, you can take the attitude that your job as a writer is not to control everything, but to set things in motion.
Writing is like making love, editing is like giving your great grandfather a sponge bath.
Writer's block isn't always a problem. It can be a process of writing that helps us write better.
People wonder why you choose certain subjects to write about. The truth is: you don't really. They choose you
The writer’s life requires courage, patience, empathy, openness. It requires the ability to be alone with oneself. Gentle with oneself. To be disciplined, and at the same time, take risks.
Writing takes a pen, a sheet of paper and, to start with, just the shadow of an idea.
Writers know all the good reasons for subjecting their work to a sharp trim. Early drafts are notorious for repetition, indirection and overdevelopment of the trivial.
You don't teach a person how to write as much as you teach that person how to survive the writing process.
I've discovered that sometimes writing badly can eventually lead to something better. Not writing at all leads to nothing.
Never try to keep it professional, keep it smutty, write with bodily fluids on sandpaper, and damn the men with clipboards in white suits, the literary bean-counters, the prose police.
Writing is like bungee jumping for the soul...you take a deep breath, plunge into the abyss and hope the rope tethering you to the real world doesn't snap.
I recommend writing standing up from time to time. It's easier to dance when you finish writing.
What one gains in technique can lead to deforestation in the writing that is both good and bad. Keep the energy and the willingness to proceed stupidly.
I suppose that I did for myself what psychoanalysts do for their patients. I expressed some very long felt and deeply felt emotion. And in expressing it I explained it and then laid it to rest.
Writing is like gardening. Planting, watering, and weeding are not enough. You have to prune if you want growth.
On the worst day of writing, the work is instructive. On the best day, the act is transcendent.
Books most certainly don't write themselves, but life does. When in doubt about what to write, use your own life.
Don't fool yourself. Talking about writing is not the same as actually doing it.
Writing, is not a race. Is to distill the soul letter by letter in a slow and delicate process that will take years.
Do not worry about what words to use. Worry about why this story needs to be told and the rest will take care of itself.
I'm really just playing when I write. I feel like I'm a kid again. I want my characters to do and say things like when I played with dolls!
The novella will be called, I think, “The Messiah of Stockholm.” It takes place in Stockholm. I’d better say no more, or the Muse will wipe it out.
In this book, much is metaphorical, not as it seems. It’s written for writing’s sake, as if I were to say, “Let me tell you I’m dying.” Well of course I am. So are you.
Start with a word. A word leads to a sentence, which leads to a paragraph, which leads to a chapter, which leads to a manuscript, which leads to a book..... just start with a word!
Want to be a writer? take a good book a good pen and a notepad to bed with you every night of your life.
No matter how much enthusiasm and effort you put into writing, if you totally lack literary talent you can forget about being a novelist.
Always remember that writing is an alliance between author and reader. With every line we put down on the page, we need to leave room for the reader's imagination and intellect.
A writer has no use for the clock. A writer lives in an infinity of days, time without end, ploughed under.
Go APE: Author a great book, Publish it quickly, and Entrepreneur your way to success. Self-publishing isn’t easy, but it’s fun and sometimes even lucrative. Plus, your book could change the world.
Starting your book is only the first five miles of a twenty-six-mile marathon that’s one-third of a triathlon (authoring, publishing, and entrepreneuring).
For me, not knowing your theme until your finished is like using a scalpel to turn a kangaroo into Miss Universe – there will be a lot of deep cuts, and there’s a high chance it won’t work.
I was afraid I wrote neither well enough nor ill enough for success.
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.
...the secret to writing is to get your own pain - shout it out till it hurts your throat - weep it into your pillow - then write it down ...
I believe that what we want to write wants to be written
...writing with ferocity is a gift, provided that ferocity is a monomaniacal devotion to pursuing the truth ...
... my early writing was a silent fury - at what or whom, I had no idea - but I shut it in until it burned my bones and now, I've let it out...
...I make no apology about stirring the depths - every human longs to swim under water and see what lurks beneath ...
I do not distinguish between the construction of a book and that of a painting and I always proceed from the simple to the complex." - 1946
