about writing Quotes

“Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art, you must master the craft. If you want to write, practice writing.”

“The journey from the head to the hand is perilous and lined with bodies. It is the road on which nearly everyone who wants to write—and many of the people who do write—get lost.”

“Writers are people who write. By and large, they are not happy people. They're not good at relationships. Often they're drunks. And writing—good writing—does not get easier and easier with practice. It gets harder and harder—so that eventually the writer must stall out into silence. The silence that waits for every writer and that, inevitably, if only with death, the writer must fall into is angst-ridden and terrifying—and often drives us mad. So if you're not a writer, consider yourself fortunate.”

“One of the few things I know about writing is this:spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is a signal to spend it now. Something more will arise later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water.”

“Whenever there's something wrong with your writing, suspect that there's something wrong with your thinking.”

“I’m feeling a low regarding writing. I sometimes think I should finish working on my book of stripper poetry that I started, but other times I feel like it’s not worth it. Sometimes I think I should work on my comic book idea, and then other times I want to work on a website, and still other times I think I should be working on this memoir. That’s a lot of thinking about writing without a whole lot of writing going on.”

“The more we are willing to separate from distraction and step into the open arms of boredom, the more writing will get on the page.”

“Writing is really just a matter of writing a lot, writing consistently and having faith that you'll continue to get better and better. Sometimes, people think that if they don't display great talent and have some success right away, they won't succeed. But writing is about struggling through and learning and finding out what it is about writing itself that you really love.”

“The more I write the more I learn about writing. It is easy to say what looks good or sound good on paper until you experience it for yourself.”

“You will learn more about writing from one hour of reading than you will in six hours of writing.”