Quotes About Writing

There's a perception that good writing is writing which runs smoothly. But smooth-running prose can work against what you're trying to express in a novel.

It's very unlikely that a writer is going to make a living by writing. So then the question is: how do you balance work, life, and writing? If you find out, please tell me.

I think I'm very strong at dialogue, I think I'm very strong in characterization. I think sometimes I use dialogue and character work to cover weaknesses in my plotting.

I can focus on writing, or I can get lost in wonderfully fun but endless conversations and produce nothing new at all. I count on those people who enjoy my work to understand this.

You know, there are those writers who work at writing every day. I'm not one of those guys. I tend to work at varying levels of intensity, based on the amount of time and energy I have available.

Its impossible to control the reception of your work - the only thing you can control is the experience of writing itself, and the work you create.

For me, setting and description is a challenge. I always want to get that part just right, and sometimes the words won't work.

I do want to work on writing, because writing's a skill. Writing is something that you can train yourself to know better. To know yourself better. And it's intimidating as hell.

A lot of my work comes from a place of despair or fear. I often write in order to gain some sort of control over aspects of my life or the world that seem too dark to look at directly.

It's not easy to make friends when you're an adult writer outside of academia, especially when you work alone in a little room for twelve hours a day, and so I wrote toward what I most longed for.

Writing by hand is a way of letting mystery into my writing. But I'm constantly trying to figure out how to do this job. It's a work in progress.

Fundamentally I think we all write the kinds of work we'd most like to read. Or we try to.

I'm still a fanboy geek. I always will be. In many ways, if my work still resonates with the audience, it's because I'm still writing from the point of view of the fan, so I'm geeked out constantly.

I would go to work from 9 to 6, go home, nap for two hours, then write from 8 to 2 a.m.

I tend to only write productively for one to two hours per day, so there is plenty of time left over for me to work a day job!

Raymond Chandler managed to write about L.A. his whole career. Should I keep going writing about New York? Is that what I should be doing? Songwriting doesn't work that way.

When I work on a book, I usually start with a question. And I don't sit around and go "I need to write a book. What's a good question?" It will be a question that's just clanging around in my head.

Ideas mostly come from the work itself. Often when I'm drawing, the words will be bouncing around in my head, and when I'm writing, ideas about the drawing happen.

There's less skill and more plain hard work to writing than anyone except a writer thinks.

I picture my books as movies when I get stuck, and when I'm working on a new idea, the first thing I do is hit theaters to work out pacing and mood.

I was able to work out all sorts of attitudes to style and event and character, all of which affected the way I came to think about my own writing. I believe that all good writers are original.

I used to write in bed, starting when I woke up. I believe that creative work comes from our subconscious mind, so I try to keep the gap between sleep and writing as minimal as possible.

I knew it, I just knew it! The person who had the job of writing my life's dialogue used to work on a very low budget soap opera.

For better or worse, most of my writing life has been about people that work behind the scenes. I'm interested in finding extraordinary moments in otherwise normal people.