Writing Advice Process Quotes & Sayings

Developing your voice takes ...
time and practice. — Darynda Jones

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

Very early on, near the beginning of my writing life, I came to believe that I had to seize on some object outside of literature. Writing as a sylistic exercise seemed barren to me. Poetry as the art of the word made me yawn. I also understood that I couldn't sustain myself very long on the poems of others. I had to go out from myself and literature, look around in the world and lay hold of other spheres of reality. — Zbigniew Herbert

The writer, his eye on the finish line, never gave enough thought to how to run the race. — William Zinsser

Simply put: writing is rewriting. — Ronald Dane

We write to embrace the sacred thoughts. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I'm writing. The pages are starting to stack up. My morale is improving the more I feel like a writer. — Neil Gaiman

When you start out writing, your inner creative is just a little seedling with tiny leaves above the earth, peeping out into the air for the first time. — Joanna Penn

The more time you can put between you and your manuscript, the more fresh your eyes become and the more mistakes you'll catch. Let a chapter rest for a day, you'll see ways to improve it. Let your completed book rest a month or more and you'll see stuff that's long or that you want to skip. Read it out loud to get rid of awkward phrases and listen to your critique partners if they are good. — Dan Alatorre

An author who rewrites his own work must essentially be two people. One is the free flowing uncritical writer who creates the bulk of the material - the other is the extremely critical editor whose aim it is to make the book as good as it can become. — Gudjon Bergmann

To all the talented young men who wander about feeling that there is nothing in the world for them to do, I should say: 'Give up trying to write, and, instead, try not to write. Go out into the world; become a pirate, a king in Borneo, a labourer in Soviet Russia; give yourself an existence in which the satisfaction of elementary physical needs will occupy almost all your energies.' I do not recommend this course of action to everyone, but only to those who suffer from the disease which Mr Krutch diagnoses. I believe that, after some years of such an existence, the ex-intellectual will fin that in spite of is efforts he can no longer refrain from writing, and when this time comes his writing will not seem to him futile. — Bertrand Russell

I'm sorry if ... I get too personal, if I make you uncomfortable, but writing is like one of the seven deadly sins, like Sharing on Mr. Rogers, and once you get the bug you're trapped in The Neighborhood of Make-Believe forever. — Shannon Celebi

I'm not talented or gifted. I'm a committed, meticulous workaholic. The only reason I succeed is because I refuse to fail. — Jessie Snow

No writing is wasted. Did you know that sourdough from San Francisco is leavened partly by a bacteria called lactobacillus sanfrancisensis? It is native to the soil there, and does not do well elsewhere. But any kitchen can become an ecosystem. If you bake a lot, your kitchen will become a happy home to wild yeasts, and all your bread will taste better. Even a failed loaf is not wasted. Likewise, cheese makers wash the dairy floor with whey. Tomato gardeners compost with rotten tomatoes. No writing is wasted: the words you can't put in your book can wash the floor, live in the soil, lurk around in the air. They will make the next words better. — Erin Bow

On a related note, I think for many of us, the first step in becoming a good writer is to write crap. In all seriousness, none of us are born knowing how to write. Almost all of us will produce a lot of really lousy stories before we start to get good. (Not all of us will choose to publish those lousy stories, but that's a whole separate discussion ... ) — Jim C. Hines

Attempting to express a person's objective reality and subjective state of mind with the written word is an endless task because writing alters our perception of reality and amends our mental equilibrium. — Kilroy J. Oldster

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. — Peter Selgin

There is a difference between fresh and weird. You never want to throw your reader out of the story. Keep it fresh but natural. — Darynda Jones

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

Writing at its best is simply taking dictation from your soul. — Catherine Carrigan

Stay within the confines of your chosen topic. If you start to stray away from your topic and find an urge to showcase everything that you know, resist that urge. Remember that you are writing a book, not the book. — Gudjon Bergmann

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

Art is a journey of excellence not a goal of perfection. — Jacqueline Patricks

Writing starts with living. — L.L. Barkat

For me writing is a long, hard, painful process, but it is addictive, a pleasure that I seek out actively. My advice to young writers is this: Read a lot. Read to find out what past writers have done. Then write about what you know. Write about your school, your class, about your teachers, your family. That's what I did. Each writer must find his or her own kind of voice. Finally, you have to keep on writing. — Laurence Yep

Getting started on writing a book isn't as hard as it sounds. You don't need a plan and an outline. In fact, all you need are two things: time and one idea. — Natasha Lester

Being a writer, I think, is much like being a parent or a pet parent in my case. I love all of my characters equally, even if I want you to hate them, I love them. If you don't love all your characters you're not doing it right. — Ellie Elisabeth

WHILE writing, just try to have fun with your ms. Enjoy the process, but push on. Always push toward the finish line! — Darynda Jones

Fiction is a careful combination of observation, inspiration, and imagination. — Luke Taylor

I cannot tell you how important fresh, crisp writing is for an aspiring writer. Plot is great. The overall concept is super important. But the writing is what sells your work. It all boils down to the words you choose and the order in which you arrange them. — Darynda Jones

Writers often torture themselves trying to get the words right. Sometimes you must lower your expectations and just finish it. — Don Roff

Humor is so subjective, not everyone is going to get what you are peddling. Others will be offended when what you meant no offense whatsoever. Those are the stakes. You have to be able to stand up for yourself and what you've written. Comedy pushes limits, makes people uncomfortable, and is a natural reaction to the environment. Otherwise, as I said, it is forced. Let it flow and give your characters permission to cross a line or two, but only if you can take the heat afterward. — Darynda Jones

No art ever came out of not risking your neck. — Eudora Welty

There's a fine line between appropriate and inappropriate, but it better be a strong, clear line.' As a teacher, I took that advice to heart. As a writer, I asked, "'But what happens if the line isn't strong or clear? — Joseph Kenyon

Yes, writing is that easy. Yes, writing is that hard. But if you want to do it you can. Only you can stop you. — R.M. Donaldson

In quickness is truth. The more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping. — Ray Bradbury

I would write:
"The soft melting hunk of butter trickled in gold down the stringy grooves of the split yam."
Or:
"The child's clumsy fingers fumbled in sleep, feeling vainly for the wish of its dream."
"The old man huddled in the dark doorway, his bony face lit by the burning yellow in the windows of distant skycrapers."
My purpose was to capture a physical state or movement that carried a strong subjective impression, an accomplishment which seemed supremely worth struggling for. If I could fasten the mind of the reader upon words so firmly that he would forget words and be conscious only of his response, I felt that I would be in sight of knowing how to write narrative. — Richard Wright

I know it's difficult in the beginning. But, listen. If you have the impulse to write, do yourself a favor, do the world a favor, and write. — Christy Hall

Don't give in to doubt. Never be discouraged if your first draft isn't what you thought it would be. Given skill and a story that compels you, muster your determination and make what's on the page closer to what you have in your mind. The chances are that you'll never make them identical. That's one reason I'm still hitting the keyboard. Obsessed by the secrets of my past, I try to put metaphorical versions of them on the page, but each time, no matter how honest and hard my effort, what's in my mind hasn't been fully expressed, compelling me to keep trying. To paraphrase a passage from John Barth's "Lost in the Funhouse," I'll die telling stories to myself in the dark. But there's never enough time. There was never enough time. — David Morrell

..here's the editor's prescription, writer: 1000 words daily until next checkup. — Rob Bignell, Editor

Write what you want to write. That's the only advice a writer will ever need. — Chloe Thurlow

To unlock the writer's block is to keep writing until you can unknot the "not". If you cannot, then put a can in the plot and unwrap it a lot! — Ana Claudia Antunes

Let your characters lead when you're dancing together. — Caron Kamps Widden

Your writing should be filled with simple complexities and complex simplicities. Because that is life. — Christy Hall

Being a writer is not just about typing. It's also about surviving the rollercoaster of the creative journey. — Joanna Penn

Writing's in the nouns. — Lori Roy

At one time I thought the most important thing was talent. I think now that - the young man or the young woman must possess or teach himself, train himself, in infinite patience, which is to try and to try and to try until it comes right. He must train himself in ruthless intolerance. That is, to throw away anything that is false no matter how much he might love that page or that paragraph. The most important thing is insight, that is ... curiosity to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does. And if you have that, then I don't think the talent makes much difference, whether you've got that or not.
[Press conference, University of Virginia, May 20, 1957] — William Faulkner

There is nothing more valuable in the writing process than a friend to hold you accountable to your own potential. — J.R. Young

If a writer knows everything that is going to happen, then his book is dead before he begins it. — V.S. Naipaul

My best writing happens when I'm fighting to produce it. — Carla H. Krueger

Writings are thoughts in a defined moment. — Lailah Gifty Akita

If you are serious, and you want to make a living as an author, then you need to hustle. Period. If you can't make that quality, then you need to concentrate on your craft and practice more.
One other thing, quality comes with practice. If you are prolific, then you become a better writer because you are writing. The more you do anything the better at it you will become. So in a way, quantity does add to quality. — Larry Correia

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

We will need to find people who will provide a safe writing space for us, where criticism comes late and love and delight come early.

- from Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing — L.L. Barkat

The thing I've learned is that thinking is not writing. — Erica Lorraine Scheidt

The final advantage is the same that applies in every other competitive venture. If you would like to write better than everyone else, you have to want to write better than everyone else. You must take an obsessive pride in the smallest details of your craft. And you must be willing to defend what you've written against the various middlemen--editors, agents, and publishers--whose sights may be different from yours, whose standards are not as high. Too many writers are browbeaten into settling for less than their best. — William Zinsser

There is nothing better than expressions in words. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Poetic license is not a license to scribe recklessly. — C. Kennedy

10 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer
Write.
Write more.
Write even more.
Write even more than that.
Write when you don't want to.
Write when you do.
Write when you have something to say.
Write when you don't.
Write every day.
Keep writing. — Brian Clark

Passion is a deep love for sacred activity. — Lailah Gifty Akita

When a person sets out to learn from others and not to teach others he becomes a true writer. — Carla H. Krueger

The art of writing involves making as many cups of tea as you can in the time available for writing. Then adding extra time for writing ... — Alan Dapre

There is a ruthlessness to the creative act. It often involves a betrayal of the status quo. — Alan Watt

When we sit down to write, we psychically enter a sanctuary. This safe haven is our own personal space where we can say whatever is on our mind, where we can talk about what matters most to us, where we can imagine the kind of world that we would like to live. — Rob Bignell, Editor

Writing is easy. Writing a publishable book is hard. — Eliza Green

You need the devotion to your work that a priest of God has for his. — Ernest Hemingway,

The sooner you finish procrastinating, the sooner you can get back to your art. — Stephanie Lennox

Get through a draft as quickly as possible. Hard to know the shape of the thing until you have a draft. Literally, when I wrote the last page of my first draft of Lincoln's Melancholy I thought, Oh, shit, now I get the shape of this. But I had wasted years, literally years, writing and re-writing the first third to first half. The old writer's rule applies: Have the courage to write badly. — Joshua Wolf Shenk

Don't be afraid of what you're creating. — Christy Hall

Consider yourself a functional character in someone else's novel - a background character - a person on the street - that's the perspective ... — John Geddes

A writer will always be a writer. It's not a choice, it's a destiny. — Stephanie Lennox

Books are like rivers, meandering this way and that, but taking us on a steady, flowing course to somewhere different. — Carla H. Krueger

... The Book is more important than your plans for it. You have to go with what works for The Book ~ if your ideas appear hollow or forced when they are put on paper, chop them, erase them, pulverise them and start again. Don't whine when things are not going your way, because they are going the right way for The Book, which is more important. The show must go on, and so must The Book. — E.A. Bucchianeri

If you have a story to tell, put it out there. Get the thing done. No excuses. No procrastinating. No apologies. It will never be as good as you want it to be, so forget about perfection. Just be satisfied that you've done the best work you can do at this stage in your life as an author. Then roll the rocket onto the launch pad and fire it off. After that, write another story. Always keep going. Move fast. Stay one step ahead of the forces of distraction and self-doubt. Love your characters enough to give them a good home. Love your readers enough to give them a place of refuge from life's tragedies, big and small. And love the world you live in enough to make it the world of your dreams. — James Hampton

Writer's block isn't always a problem. It can be a process of writing that helps us write better. — Jennifer Hudson Taylor

You can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page. — Jodi Picoult

If you don't make time for writing, writing won't make time for you. — Sandra Elaine Scott

Set fire to cities and nations, to hearts and minds, to the very core of every human spirit. Make sure your words seep into the skin of the reader, leaving trace minerals that sustain the ailing human shell. Make them pay attention. Set fire to the soul. Anything less is an abomination to creation. — Susan Marie

Concentrate on sharpening your memory and peeling your sensibility. Cut every page you write by at least one third. Stop constructing those piffling little similes of yours. Work out what it is you want to say. Then say it in the most direct and vigorous way you can. Eat meat. Drink blook. Give up your social life and don't think you can have friends. Rise in the quiet hours of the night and prick your fingertips and use the blood for ink; that will cure you of persiflage! — Hilary Mantel

Inspiration for my short stories grows from a psychic kernel, a vision of some sort or an eccentric, colorful dream. — Lawren Leo

Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn't work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they're done they're done. — Kurt Vonnegut

At seventeen I tried to write poetry confining myself solely to Anglo-Saxon words - don't know if it helped, but it made me more concrete ... — John Geddes

I don't know that it's particularly good for my writing process, but I have gotten some very valuable writing ideas and advice through Twitter and Facebook and other social network sites. — Rachel Caine

Don't be afraid to get off the internet, the answers aren't all there. You may have to ask a cop about the kickback from a shotgun, or how sweaty they get in summer wearing body armor. Or what color blood is in the moonlight, or the vibrations through a serrated knife's handle you feel in your fingers when you are hacking through somebody's neck and hit cartilage. — Dan Alatorre

As a writer, the main skill you need is curiosity. As a reader, the main tool you need is open-mindedness. — Gloria D. Gonsalves

Collect books, even if you don't plan on reading them right away. Nothing is more important than an unread library. — John Waters

Don't fool yourself. Talking about writing is not the same as actually doing it. — Christy Hall

I've learned that the creative life may or may not be the apex of human civilization, but either way it's not what I thought it was. It doesn't make you special and sparkly. You don't have to walk alone. You can work in an office - I've worked in offices for the past 15 years and written five novels while doing it. The creative life is forgiving: You can betray it all you want, again and again, and no matter how many times you do, it will always take you back. — Lev Grossman

I have an idea and a first line
and that suggests the rest of it. I have little concept of what I'm going to say, or where it's going. I have some idea of how long it's going to be
but not what will happen or what the themes will be. That's the intrigue of doing it
it's a process of discovery. You get to discover what you're going to say and what it's going to mean. — T.C. Boyle

When you're speaking in the truest, most intimate voice about your life, you are speaking with the universal voice. — Cheryl Strayed

Develop the skill of writing to avoid errors but if you do make them, don't be demotivated — Bernard Kelvin Clive

Give all that you can.
No more. No less.
Every. Single. Day. — Christy Hall

You can't take it personally when something you have written sucks. Just delete it and write something else. — Gudjon Bergmann

The most important step in the whole process was to just sit down and do it. My hobby has become a second career. Who knew?-Jamie Beck, Romance Novelist — Holly Hurd

Trying to compose even a single sentence can have the same effect, as we try to juggle grammatical and syntactical alternatives plus all the possibilities of tone, nuance, and rhythm even a simple sentence offers. Composing, then, is a cognitive activity that
constantly threatens to overload short-term memory. — Linda Flower

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. — Don Roff

It wont do to say that the reader is too dumb or too lazy to keep pace with the train of thought. If the reader is lost, it's usually because the writer hasn't be careful enough. — William Zinsser

Remember ...
Keystrokes are hammer taps. Get words on paper. Don't worry about connections, character or plot. Work for an hour. Promise yourself an hour. Do nothing else but move your fingers. Make coarse shapes. Follow any emotion that pops up but never impose emotion, never fake it, and don't make up your mind or your heart ahead of time. Understand you don't know what you're doing. That's why you're here. Rough it out. Anything goes. You can decide later what any piece of text looks like, what it might mean. Don't stop. Don't question. Don't quit. Don't stop to read what you wrote. Move your fingers. You mind will have no other option but to keep up. Remember that writer's block is merely the cold marble waiting for the chisel to heat up. — Bob Thurber

What a lover of words and their beauty discovers. . .is that there is literally a word for every object, material or immaterial, every relation, and every process that human beings have experienced. Because that is what words are: the crystallization in language of thousands of years of experience across numerous cultures and civilizations, each word being the most tangible flesh in which thought is tabernacled. — Charles Johnson

Live inside your stories, yes, but do not hide behind them. — Christy Hall