Quotes About Writing

It takes me forever to actually finish something like a ten-page essay. But, when I do, I usually love what they are. It's a complicated relationship.

I just want people to finish the book and say, 'I was entertained.' When I set out to do it, I had no deal in place. I knew it would be tough. I read somewhere that John Steinbeck was turned down 22 times on his first novel. But I was just going to do it.

I don't write for an audience, I don't think whether my book will sell, I don't sell it before I finish writing it.

I now can be sure that, once I start writing a book, I'll be able to finish it. I've also become more assured about my 'voice' as a writer and being able to keep the characters true to themselves.

It's easier to come up with new stories than it is to finish the ones you already have. I think every author would feel that way.

A daily blog would just about finish me off completely.

I've started lots of books, but it's hard for me to finish them.

When I finish a book, I always fear that I'll never write again. It takes a lot of time. You always think if you could just do something else - but nothing else makes me as happy.

The first story I finished was when I was six years old.

I started writing movie scripts. They excited me a lot, but I didn't like them when they were finished because they were simple copies of the films I saw in childhood.

I just wrote a book, but don't go out and buy it yet, because I don't think it's finished yet.

I don't write drafts. I write from the beginning to the end, and when it's finished, it's done.

I just finished my 11th book last week, so I'm ready to start the next one.

Well, I am becoming doddering and old but I have - I'm writing two books a year now. It's like 220,000 words or something like finished, and, honest to God, I can't do that. I really do need the help of, you know, other people working with me.

When I sit down I write very fast... if I haven't finished a book in two or three months then I think it's not going well.

I write until the first draft is finished, and then I feel that I can get out. But, during the time of the writing of the first draft, I don't go out. I'm just locked away, writing. It's a time of meditation, of going into the story.

I don't read my books, I write them. Once I've finished the many years it usually takes me to write them, I can't bear to read them, because I've spent too long with them already. I'm not advertising them very well, am I?

Lots of shows are written completely in the writer's room. And I wouldn't say 'The Walking Dead' is that way. There are three levels to it. There's us in the room. The writers going off by themselves. And me working with the writers on a finished script.

I think after you write something and you're finished with it, there is a sense of loss. That this is a world I can't really re-enter the way that I could when I was working on it. The covers of the book close it to the writer.

I finished 'America America,' and I knew I had to write another book, not just for personal reasons but because I had a contract.

Here's the secret to finishing that first book. Don't rewrite as you go.

I was writing fiction, but not finishing fiction.

While writing, I'm always so happy in the middle of a book or finishing a book and really hate starting them, so I often think, 'I wish I had a really big book to write to which I could devote seven years of my life.'

Maybe I'll write an episode of 'Black-ish' about a guy being fired in late-night.