The Write Words

2010-12-16T08:27:00.002-07:00

We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little.

~ Anne Lamott

2010-07-16T08:28:00.000-06:00

Nothing, not love, not greed, not passion or hatred, is stronger than a writer's need to change another writer's copy.

~ Arthur Evans

2010-06-16T08:27:00.001-06:00

A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the other one.

~ Baltasar Gracián

2010-05-16T08:24:00.002-06:00

It's none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.

~ Ernest Hemingway

2010-04-16T08:23:00.001-06:00

Never throw up on an editor.

- Ellen Datlow

2010-03-08T09:32:00.000-07:00

Strong people make as many mistakes as weak people. Difference is that strong people admit their mistakes, laugh at them, learn from them. That is how they become strong.
--Richard Needham

2010-03-07T09:29:00.001-07:00

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.

~ Mark Twain

2010-03-07T08:25:00.000-07:00

"...it's easy after all not to be a writer. most people aren't writers and very little harm comes to them."

Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

2009-08-21T13:06:00.001-06:00

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

~ Jack London

2009-08-20T09:42:00.000-06:00

Books are the liberated spirits of men.

Mark Twain

2009-08-06T08:58:00.001-06:00

Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

Mark Twain

2009-07-31T08:09:00.005-06:00

A man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.

-Mark Twain

2009-04-05T13:35:00.009-06:00

"Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer."

-Barbara Kingsolver

2009-03-26T09:07:00.004-06:00

"Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any."

-Orson Scott Card

2008-07-17T23:31:00.004-06:00

"My students often told me they didn't have anything to say. They were silent. Empty. They felt anxiety. Panic. Terror. 'Good' I'd answer. 'You are a writer. You are at the place from which writing comes.'"

~Donald Murray in Shoptalk

2008-04-21T19:30:00.002-06:00

"A page a day is a book a year. . ."

—Richard Rhodes, How to Write, p. 178

2008-04-21T19:30:00.001-06:00

"A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labors of a spasmodic Hercules."

—Anthony Trollope

2008-04-21T19:28:00.000-06:00

"Sometimes I think writers are people who run out of good books to read and decide in desperation to write their own. (If that's your game, beware: writing makes you a more discriminating reader, which correspondingly reduces the number of books you can bear to read.)"

—by Richard Rhodes, How to Write, p. 87

2008-04-19T07:47:00.001-06:00

As a rule, I am very careful to be shallow and conventional where depth and originality are wasted.

—L.M. Montgomery

2008-04-18T07:46:00.000-06:00

A word after a word after a word is power.

—Margaret Atwood

2008-04-14T07:45:00.000-06:00

The first four months of writing the book, my mental image is scratching with my hands through granite. My other image is pushing a train up the mountain, and it's icy, and I'm in bare feet.

—Mary Higgins Clark

2008-04-11T07:45:00.000-06:00

If you have to pay the bills, and you write something you're not proud of, use a pen-name for that.

—Dean Koontz

2008-04-11T07:44:00.000-06:00

I think it's the people who have no doubt that every word they put down is gold that probably don't write very well. If something in your writing gives support to people in their lives, that's more than just entertainment—which is what we writers all struggle to do, to touch people.

—Dean Koontz

2008-04-10T07:43:00.000-06:00

Every writer has to figure out what works best—and often has to select and discard different tools before they find the one that fits. I don't believe for one moment you can write well what you wouldn't read for pleasure.

—Nora Roberts

2008-04-09T07:42:00.000-06:00

Write the kind of story you would like to read. People will give you all sorts of advice about writing, but if you are not writing something you like, no one else will like it either.

—Meg Cabot

2008-04-08T07:42:00.000-06:00

I still approach each book with the same basic plan in mind—to put some people under severe stress and see how they hold up.

—Terry Brooks

2008-04-07T07:41:00.000-06:00

I focus on the writing and let the rest of the process take care of itself. I've learned to trust my own instincts and I've also learned to take risks.

—Sue Grafton

2008-04-03T07:40:00.000-06:00

I have learned not to read reviews. Period. And I hate reviewers. All of them, or at least all but two or three. Life is much simpler ignoring reviews and the nasty people who write them. Critics should find meaningful work.

—John Grisham

2008-04-01T07:38:00.001-06:00

Anything you read can influence your work, so I try to read good stuff.

—S.E. Hinton

2008-01-31T22:22:00.002-07:00

"The only cure for writer's block is insomnia."

~Merit Antares

2008-01-31T22:16:00.002-07:00

"Being an author is like being in charge of your own personal insane asylum."

~Graycie Harmon

2008-01-31T22:14:00.001-07:00

"It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop."

~Vita Sackville-West

2008-01-31T22:13:00.001-07:00

"The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium."

~Norbet Platt

2008-01-31T22:12:00.001-07:00

"To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music the words make."

~Truman Capote, McCall's, November 1967

2008-01-14T18:05:00.000-07:00

When in doubt, use the semicolon; the average reader won't understand its use and will give you credit for erudition.

—Denis Smith, from Rules of Thumb

2008-01-14T18:01:00.000-07:00

"Read your work out loud to locate problems. If you run out of breath, the sentence is too long."

—Robert Kanigel, from Rules of Thumb

2008-01-12T22:16:00.000-07:00

Writers overuse the word "massive." If you grunt and turn blue when you try to pick it up - it's massive. If you don't - it isn't.

—Ben Hansen, from Rules of Thumb

2008-01-11T22:18:00.000-07:00

A prospective client for a literary agency who begins his letter of application with the words "My name is..." should not be seriously considered.

—Walter Pitkin from Rules of Thumb

2008-01-09T22:20:00.000-07:00

Just because you have a thesaurus doesn't mean you have to use the words at the bottom of the list.

—Alan Kellogg from Rules of Thumb

2008-01-07T22:21:00.000-07:00

If you are not sure if you should use a semi-colon, use a comma. If you are not sure if you should use a comma, use a period. If you are not sure if you should use a period: quit writing.

—Raymond Schultz from Rules of Thumb

2007-12-28T17:54:00.000-07:00

"In this box are all the words I know. . . Most of them you will never need, some you will use constantly, but with them you may ask all the questions which have never been answered and answer all the questions which have never been asked. All the great books of the past and all the ones yet to come are made with these words. With them there is no obstacle you cannot overcome. All you must learn to do is to use them well and in the right places."

—from Phantom Tollbooth by Justin Juster
(stolen from a post on this blog)

2007-11-13T11:09:00.000-07:00

Good novels are not written, they are rewritten. Great novels are diamonds mined from layered rewrites.

—Andre Jutes

(Stolen from the blog of Michele Holmes)

2007-10-11T01:58:00.001-06:00

Fiction is a lie, and good fiction is the truth inside the lie.

—Stephen King

2007-10-11T01:57:00.001-06:00

Never throw up on an editor.

—Ellen Datlow

2007-10-11T01:56:00.001-06:00

Writing is a lot easier if you have something to say.

—Sholem Asch

2007-10-11T01:55:00.000-06:00

How do I know what I think until I see what I say?

—E. M. Forster

2007-10-11T01:54:00.003-06:00

When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen.

—Samuel Lover

2007-10-11T01:54:00.001-06:00

The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn't behave that way you would never do anything.

—John Irving

2007-10-11T01:53:00.001-06:00

The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any.

—Russell Baker

2007-10-11T01:52:00.001-06:00

If the doctor told me I had six minutes to live, I'd type a little faster.

—Isaac Asimov

2007-10-11T01:51:00.001-06:00

"There are many reasons why novelists write – but they all have one thing in common: a need to create an alternative world."

—John Fowles

2007-10-11T01:48:00.000-06:00

Why do writers write? Because it isn't there.

—Thomas Berger

2007-10-09T13:33:00.000-06:00

"Convince yourself that you are working in clay, not marble, on paper, not eternal bronze: let that first sentence be as stupid as it wishes."

- Jacques Barzun

2007-10-09T13:30:00.001-06:00

"A writer's job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as memories."

- John Irving

2007-10-09T13:29:00.001-06:00

"Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely essential."

- Jessamyn West

2007-10-09T13:28:00.001-06:00

"If you wait for inspiration, you're not a writer, but a waiter."

- Anonymous

2007-10-09T13:27:00.002-06:00

"The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair."

- Mary Heaton Vorse

2007-10-09T13:27:00.001-06:00

"Don't get it right, get it written."

- James Thurber

2007-10-09T13:25:00.001-06:00

"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."

- Anton Chekhov

2007-10-09T13:24:00.002-06:00

"Don't say the old lady screamed -- bring her on and let her scream. "

- Mark Twain

2007-10-09T13:24:00.001-06:00

"If you tell me, it's an essay. If you show me, it's a story."

- Barbara Greene

2007-10-09T13:23:00.000-06:00

"A writer's voice is not character alone, it is not style alone; it is far more. A writer's voice line the stroke of an artist's brush -- is the thumbprint of her whole person -- her idea, wit, humor, passions, rhythms."

- Patricia Lee Gauch

2007-10-09T13:18:00.001-06:00

"How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream."

- Gaston Bachelard

2007-10-09T13:16:00.000-06:00

"What no wife [or husband] of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working even when he's staring out the window. "

- Burton Rascoe

2007-10-03T23:02:00.000-06:00

"Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire."

- Reggie Leach

2007-10-01T22:43:00.000-06:00

"To grow in craft is to increase the bredth of what I can do, but art is the depth, the passion, the desire, the courage to be myself and myself alone."

- Pat Schneider

2007-10-01T22:42:00.002-06:00

"For anyone who is: just keep writing. Keep reading. If you are meant to be a writer, a storyteller, it’ll work itself out. You just keep feeding it your energy, and giving it that crucial chance to work itself out. By reading and writing."

- Robin McKinley

2007-10-01T22:42:00.001-06:00

"My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip."

- Elmore Leonard

2007-10-01T22:41:00.001-06:00

"One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you're maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones."

- Stephen King

2007-10-01T22:40:00.000-06:00

"It's hard for me to believe that people who read very little - or not at all in some cases - should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written. Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time - or the tools - to write. Simple as that."

- Stephen King

2007-10-01T22:39:00.002-06:00

"The two most engaging powers of an author are, to make new things familiar, and familiar things new."

- Samuel Johnson

2007-10-01T22:39:00.001-06:00

"My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others, and that's nice, too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success."

- Helen Hayes

2007-10-01T22:37:00.000-06:00

"If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing."

- Benjamin Franklin

2007-10-01T22:36:00.002-06:00

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

- Albert Einstein

2007-10-01T22:36:00.001-06:00

"Never throw up on an editor."

- Ellen Datlow

2007-10-01T22:34:00.001-06:00

"One of the things that draws writers to writing is that they can get things right that they got wrong in real life by writing about them."

- Tobias Wolff

2007-10-01T22:33:00.002-06:00

"You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."

- Mark Twain

2007-10-01T22:33:00.001-06:00

"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection."

- Anais Nin

2007-10-01T22:32:00.001-06:00

"Fiction writers, present company included, don't understand very much about what they do - not why it works when it's good, not why it doesn't when it's bad."

- Stephen King

2007-10-01T22:31:00.001-06:00

"How do I know what I think until I see what I say?"

-E. M. Forster

2007-10-01T22:30:00.001-06:00

"A writer doesn't solve problems. He allows them to emerge."

- Friedrich Dürrenmatt

2007-10-01T22:28:00.000-06:00

"The pen is the tongue of the mind."

- Miguel de Cervantes

2007-09-30T14:15:00.000-06:00

"I . . . have to constantly balance "being a writer" with being a wife and mother. It's a matter of putting two different things first, simultaneously."

- Madeleine L'Engle

2007-09-30T14:14:00.001-06:00

"I have written eleven books, but each time I think, "Uh oh, they're going to find out now. I've run a game on everybody, and they're going to find me out."

- Maya Angelou

2007-09-30T14:13:00.001-06:00

"What I had to face, the very bitter lesson that everyone who wants to write has got to learn, was that a thing may in itself be the finest piece of writing one has ever done, and yet have absolutely no place in the manuscript one hopes to publish."

- Thomas Wolfe

2007-09-30T14:12:00.001-06:00

"Like stones, words are laborious and unforgiving, and the fitting of them together, like the fitting of stones, demands great patience and strength of purpose and particular skill. "

- Edmund Morrison

2007-09-30T13:38:00.000-06:00

"When we read, we start at the beginning and continue until we reach the end. When we write, we start in the middle and fight our way out."

- Vickie Karp

2007-09-30T13:14:00.000-06:00

"Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand."

- Winston Churchill

2007-09-27T20:37:00.001-06:00

"How can you write if you can't cry?"

- Ring Lardner

2007-09-27T20:35:00.000-06:00

"A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure."

- Henry David Thoreau

2007-09-27T20:30:00.000-06:00

"It's true that writing is a solitary occupation, but you would be surprised at how much companionship a group of imaginary characters can offer once you get to know them."

- Anne Tyler

2007-09-27T20:29:00.001-06:00

"To me the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make."

- Truman Capote

2007-09-27T20:27:00.000-06:00

"The truth is that writing is the profound pleasure and being read the superficial."

- Virginia Woolf, from A Writer's Diary

2007-09-27T11:31:00.000-06:00

"When you get to the end of your life and you're looking back on all you accomplished and didn't accomplish, what are the regrets you're going to have? Now live so that you don't carry those regrets."

- Tristi Pinkston, author of Strength to Endure and Nothing to Regret

2007-09-27T11:00:00.000-06:00

"Perseverance is more important than talent. The world is full of talented men and women who never achieve anything."

- ?

2007-09-27T10:59:00.001-06:00

"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia."

~E.L. Doctorow

2007-09-27T10:57:00.001-06:00

"The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slow I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words instead of being pulled by them."

~ Raymond Chandler

2007-09-27T10:54:00.001-06:00

"A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit."

- Richard Bach

2007-09-27T10:53:00.000-06:00

"God has plans for your writing. And believe me, they're better than any plans you have for yourself. Let Him be in charge, and let Him delight you with what He has in store."

- Virginia Smith

2007-09-27T10:52:00.001-06:00

"Detail makes the difference between boring and terrific writing. It’s the difference between a pencil sketch and a lush oil painting. As a writer, words are your paint. Use all the colors."

- Rhys Alexander