Quotes About Writing

It should consist of short, sharply focused sentences, each of which is a whole scene in itself.

I have been doing some writing on the side a little bit with artists that I'm really excited about. Kind of more up and coming people. But, I'm focusing more on my own project. It's a full time job being an artist!

I didn't start really focusing on writing until I was 24.

I used to think that if I was ever so lucky as to get a book deal that I would write all the time. All day, every day. I'd write three books a year. The truth, though, is that writing all day isn't really feasible. I could do it, but I'd be folding in on a lot of other aspects of my life, things I care about. And I wouldn't be happy.

It's fun. I sit down every day and tell stories. Some folk would kill to get that chance.

I'm working on my music a lot, like folk singing, guitar. It's sort of rocky, folky, alty, angsty. I'm putting a lot of energy into that. I write pretty much all the time.

It doesn't cost me anything to write some fun stuff for folks, because I just really enjoy a challenge.

For years following the death of my mother, I wanted to write about her. I started writing what I thought of as personal essays about growing up as her child, but I never could finish any of them. I think I was too close to that loss, and too eager to try and resolve things, to make her death make sense.

I just read the script; everything else just follows. Content is the most important thing for me.

I am fond of my writing in the film 'Mondi Mogudu Penki Pellam,' one of the first films to feature a mainstream actor like Vijayashanti speaking in Karimnagar-slang.

To write something, you have to risk making a fool of yourself.

When I'm writing, I look like a fool because the parts are moving through me and I'm crying and laughing and making faces.

I do read all my work aloud as I'm working - this has made it a little hard to adjust to my husband's retirement. I can shout the shouty parts if I'm alone in the house, but of course, I feel a fool if someone is there to hear me.

When I was 17, I grew from being something like 5'2'' to 6 foot - I grew a lot - and I don't remember growing... I feel like the same thing is true of writing. You're waiting for Santa Claus to come down the chimney, but you just fall asleep at some point, and then the magic happens.

I was writing very early, like I was involved in our high school literary magazine, which was called 'Pariah.' The football team was the Bears, and the literary magazine was 'Pariah.' It was great. It was definitely a real sub-culture. But I wrote stories for them.

After you kind of find your footing, sonnets are what comes easiest.

A subplot is a distinguishing characteristic of the novel; the short story, for example, does not need subplots.

I do have a little bit more confidence in - or at least familiarity with - my process. For example, when it feels like it's going badly or that I'm lost, I know I'll eventually find my way because I've been through it before. But writing itself is still hard.

It feels like my books come true. I write these things, and then they kind of end up happening. I wasn't divorced, for example, when I wrote a book about divorce.

If I claim I'm the opposite of my characters, then it'll just sound awful. But I tend to write the sort of things I'd never say because I'm not a very forceful person.

Reading your own material aloud forces you to listen.

Every story I write adds to me a little, changes me a little, forces me to reexamine an attitude or belief, causes me to research and learn, helps me to understand people and grow.

When you're in the throes of writing, I find, the lessons you've casually imparted to others are not in the forefront of your mind. Which may be good or bad. Probably both.

We understand our audience. We write to the things that concern our audience. At one point, it was civil rights. You know, during the '50s and '60s, we were at the forefront.