The Writing Process Quotes
Life baffles me most days. Maybe that's why I write. To try and make sense of it all.
I have written until I fell asleep with my computer on my lap. That can't be normal.
I'm not gonna lie...sometimes this whole writing thing is a lonely business.
...language always occurs in a context - you can speak Elizabethan words, but to speak the language you have to put on the mindset...
When writing, I uncage KAT: Keep Adding Tension. Even if I don't know where the story's going, petting the KAT keeps it purring.
My stories are my children. Some are sweet infants that I coddle and care for. Others are old enough now, they need to damn well get a job!
Sometimes writing is just rubbing words together long enough to make a fire.
Every writer or wanna-be writer has ideas for books. The problem isn't finding an idea, it's choosing one
The first thing you have to learn when you go into the arts is to learn to cope with rejection. If you can’t, you’re dead
When writing a book what is more important? Grammar and spelling or telling a great story? I know which I would choose.
Never underestimate the power of the written word, especially when you put them down in your own voice." -Cheryl L. Ilov, Forever Fit and Flexible: Feeling Fabulous at Fifty and Beyond.
Writing is the spectrum through which the chaos of life can be seen, studied and understood.
Writing is draining. Every word is like lifting a stone and levering it into place. Your head aches, your muscles ache and every word you conjure up is heavier than the last one.
Write what you want to write. That's the only advice a writer will ever need.
Allen Ginsberg instructs: "First thought, best thought." Oh, to have my every spontaneous thought count as poetry! No draft after draft like a draft
Lyrics paved my teenage route to loving words. I take those passionate mini-stories with me everywhere.
Nonfiction. I didn’t choose it as much as it chose me. It squatted and birthed me one raw winter day then jerked me up and set me to scribing.
It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write.What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.
You know you are a writer when characters inside your brain keep demanding, 'This is my story! Now tell it or I will never leave you alone!
The only 'ironclad rules' in writing fiction are the laws of physics and the principles of grammar, and even those can be bent.
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.
If a novel was a map of a country, a story was the bright silver pin that marked the crossroads.
Never underestimate the power of the written word, especially when you put them down in your own voice.
Attributing to another author, "Writing a novel is like setting a goal and walking there in your sleep.
Never use the passive voice. Do not say, 'It will get done.' Say, 'I'll do it, ' and then stick to a solid, unwavering deadline
The worst part of writing is meeting all these great new characters and having no one to talk about (the adventures you share with) them.
There is a difference between fresh and weird. You never want to throw your reader out of the story. Keep it fresh but natural.
Writer's block isn't always a problem. It can be a process of writing that helps us write better.
I recommend writing standing up from time to time. It's easier to dance when you finish writing.
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.
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 have often believed the pen to be a needle, and ink to be a thread. Each story is an intricately woven tapestry and with each word I invariably sew a piece of myself into the page.
Sometimes I scare myself at how easily I slip inside my mind and live vicariously through these characters.
You have to stop and freeze the moment, " he told me I had told her. "You have to make yourself remember by repeating it in your head over and over. You have to write to preserve your sanity.
