Quotes About Writing

In general, fiction is divided into 'literary fiction' and 'commercial fiction.' Nobody can definitively say what separates one from the other, but that doesn't stop everybody (including me) from trying. Your book probably will be perceived as one or the other, and that will affect how it is read, packaged and marketed.

As a woman, I know that if I write about another woman, it will be perceived as a catfight.

Writing is very much perceived as something distinct from performance. I don't see it like that.

I always claim that the writer has done 90 percent of the director's work.

The outline is 95 percent of the book. Then I sit down and write, and that's the easy part.

It's like, in movies where you talk to the audience 90 percent of the time, it's - you kind of want to stay away from that stuff. But, you know - but to write exposition brilliantly is hard.

I don't think anyone could write about another culture and get it 100 percent accurate.

I'm not thinking when I'm writing, 'How's this going to read?' Or, 'What percentage of the audience is going to stay with me?' The thing itself is what gives me pleasure. Sometimes stuff just falls onto the page so beautifully and happily that it's deeply satisfying. It's selfish!

A high percentage of each of my books has been written in Des Moines.

You can write about other people and their ideas and life without having lived it, but even your perception of that is going to be colored by what you know and what you experience. And this is undeniable.

When it comes to the lyrics, I write about my own perception of things and use characters for that.

I do feel like in filmmaking you are largely in control of the perception of you. If you want to be seen as the comedic person you've got to write a comedy and go after that.

One of the things I love about writing is the way you can use what you know and what you've experienced, without actually writing about yourself. I've given many of my experiences and perceptions to many of the characters in the book, but none of them is me.

Writing, for me, when I'm writing in the first-person, is like a form of acting. So as I'm writing, the character or self I'm writing about and my whole self - when I began the book - become entwined. It's soon hard to tell them apart. The voice I'm trying to explore directs my own perceptions and thoughts.

I think that there are empty ecological niches in the literary landscape crying to be filled and when a book more or less fills a niche it's seized on, even when it's a far from perfect fit.

If you're writing something that's clearly labelled as an alternative history, of course it's perfectly legitimate to play with known historical characters and events, but less so when you're writing an essentially straight historical fiction.

I always wanted to write as much as perform.

I always was a writer, but then I wanted to do stand-up because I thought that was a way that I could perform what I wrote.

I just like to write and then perform.

There is a musical rhythm to great writing, especially if it's performed correctly.

To put what you see on paper is the same as funneling what you feel through yourself as a performer.

I think everyone's intentions are to become a performer at first. But by the time I was in high school and college, I discovered that I liked writing and that I was probably a little better at it.

I think I went more toward writing because that's my talent. I don't think I was a great performer... And I like being behind the scenes a little bit.

Writing is just very difficult. I'm an adequate performer. And I think I have a special talent as an editor. Editing is what I do best.