106 quotes found
“Writing is a struggle against silence.”
“Work on a good piece of writing proceeds on three levels: a musical one, where it is composed; an architectural one, where it is constructed; and finally, a textile one, where it is woven.”
“People who think that grammar is just a collection of rules and restrictions are wrong. If you get to like it, grammar reveals the hidden meaning of history, hides disorder and abandonment, links t...”
“When I am writing a novel, the setting, the characters, the action is clear in mind when I start -- so I believe. But it is only when these imaginings are written down, passing it seems almost phys...”
“In the final exam in the Chaucer course we were asked why he used certain verbal devices, certain adjectives, why he had certain characters behave in certain ways. And I wrote, 'I don't think Chauc...”
“The writing begins when you've finished. Only then do you know what you're trying to say.”
“For most of the process, nothing but faith, fueled by your own stubbornness, will be pulling you along. The work that you've done on the book so far won't be much comfort, because so much of it wil...”
“The structured form of an outline helps us to keep track of all plot lines in a series, and of course, this diminishes the chance of plot holes for us.”
“Sifting through long forgotten stories of my childhood and writing on a daily basis, I became obsessed with following the threads of my memories, one leading to another. I start pulling on a single...”
“Dont hold back and save stuff for the next book. Put everything you have into the one youre writing, - Michael Connelly”
“You only fail if you stop writing.RAY BRADBURY”
“You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page.”
“To write a novel is to dream a story and write it down on the page. Thats why the power of a really good story is one of true magic. Good stories engage the reader utterly in the writers dream so t...”
“Mailer famously labeled writing the spooky art. He was right. There's a lot of frontal lobe blather, a lot of pencil-sharpening and knuckle-cracking and drafting and chat, but the big decisions are...”
“Also, I do seem attracted to trash, as if the clue--the clue--lies there. I'm always ferreting out elliptical points, odd angles. What I write doesn't make a whole lot of sense. There is fun and re...”
“I dont shy from writing about incredibly unpleasant, distressing things. And I get a kick out of it I confess. I like doing that.”
“I do not over-intellectualise the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.”
“Creating a novel means moving into the past, the hoped for, the imagined. It is an emotional journey, fraught at times with characters who don't always do or say what a writer wishes.”
“Writing involves many [acts] tasks, not just generating text”
“Writing a novel is like taking a long cross-country journey. The hardest part is getting going, making sure you have all the items you need to take with you, double- and triple-checking that the ro...”
