Quotes About Writing

My own journey as a writer has been the discovery of different theatrical voices. Chekhov was a revelation. Tennessee Williams was another one. We read 'The Glass Menagerie' in high school, and I still remember the cover.

My enthusiasm seems to cause my world to endlessly offer me cooperative, co-creating experiences. I'm willing and I'm eager, and not just about my writing - I feel the same way about staying in shape, enjoying my family, giving a lecture, or whatever it may be.

Each morning my characters greet me with misty faces willing, though chilled, to muster for another day's progress through the dazzling quicksand the marsh of blank paper.

To write well you must be willing to go naked into the world.

I always tell people there's only one trick to writing: You have to write something that people are willing to pay money to read. It doesn't have to be very good, necessarily, but somebody, somewhere, has got to be willing to pay money for it.

The market for short stories is hard to break into, but a magazine editor isn't always looking for big names with which to sell his magazine - they're more willing to try stories by newcomers, if those tales are good.

I dreamed about this as a kid, that I would write - and people would read - a whole series of books. I feel accomplished, giddy, and tired. Mostly, though, I feel thankful. A trilogy is a huge investment on the part of author, publisher, and reader, and I'm grateful that so many people were willing to invest along with me.

I've been willing to go for years without publishing. That's been my career.

To be willing to sort of die in order to move the reader, somehow. Even now I'm scared about how sappy this'll look in print, saying this.

I've been getting pretty focused about that recently, and even considered doing a masters degree to polish up the craft. I've been pretty lucky in that I seem to have found people online who are willing to constructively tear it apart for me, and indicate its weaknesses.

I guess if one set of my books was selling like Stephen King's, and the other wasn't selling at all, editors would want me to do the ones that sold like Stephen King's. But they seem to be willing to let me pick what I want to do next.

I told him that I can play it if he wanted to write it, and I would be willing to try and go there emotionally. I did not know as an actress if I would be able to get there, because when you feel really deep emotions or pain, you don't want to go back there.

I love writing for women. The willingness to go from laughter to tears in a moment is the greatest palette you can paint with as a writer.

Writing, for me at least, takes a lot of concentrated work and effort. It takes dedication and the willingness to do the work even when that feeling of inspiration isn't there at all.

It's hard to tell if I've had writer's block because it seems to me that it's when nothing comes, but, you know, every day you stare at that computer screen, and I think, 'It's never going to happen today. How can I write three pages?' And the hours pass, and they haven't shown up, and then at the very end it always happens, so it's willpower.

I suppose more than anything, it's the way of life in this part of the country that influences my writing. In Eastern North Carolina, with the exception of Wilmington, most people live in small towns.

There were a number of books about Bill Wilson, and by him, but a lot of the basic biographical tasks had not been done.

I was told that the fact that I had nothing but good things to say about Judith Regan distinguished me. I enjoyed writing for Judith. I really enjoyed working with Victoria Wilson at Knopf, and Simon & Schuster, they've all been great experiences.

Philip Pullman and Jacqueline Wilson have both been writing for a long time. In 30 years, will writers of that quality have been able to serve the same sort of apprenticeship? Not unless they can make enough money now to live on.

I think anything that's creative really takes my mind off whatever it is that I'm going through in my life. If you're going through heartbreak, and you can write a song, it's a wonderful win-win, because it takes your mind off the heartbreak, and you get to vent.

An author knows his landscape best; he can stand around, smell the wind, get a feel for his place.

I talk in subjects and verbs, and sort of wind around in concentric circles until I get far enough away from the beginning so that I can call it the end, and it ends.

The South is full of memories and ghosts of the past. For me, it is the most inspiring place to write, from William Faulkner's haunted antebellum home to the banks of the Mississippi to the wind that whispers through the cotton fields.

When I write about a 15-year old, I jump, I return to the days when I was that age. It's like a time machine. I can remember everything. I can feel the wind. I can smell the air. Very actually. Very vividly.