Quotes About Writing

At risk of sounding foully pompous I think that writers' groups are probably very useful at the beginning of a writing career.

That has to remain the principal reason for doing it, doesn't it? I know it's possible to write for money, and many very good writers have done so. But for me, it has to remain the principal thing that I actually want to do the writing.

Some writers would be kinder than others, I'm sure. Hopefully they might describe my techniques as a mixture of tried and tested formulas - if it aint broke don't fix it - and unexpected twists.

I believe that, like most writers, my personality comes through in the fiction. So in that respect my writing can't be like any other author's really.

With network shows, writers can be so protective of every syllable.

It's one of the strangest attributes of this profession that when we writers get exhausted writing one thing, we relax by writing another.

It's always a mistake for writers to key their submissions to world events, because they move so quickly and unpredictably, as has certainly proven the case in Afghanistan.

I was notified on July 17 to be ready to start August 7 for an October air date. When we reached the screen we did not have a single segment ready. It was done so fast the writers never got a chance to know what it was all about.

There are times over different projects when I've asked the writers why people are swearing for no good reason. I tell them that it would be funnier if there weren't these swear words.

I think that like all writers - and if any writer disagrees with this, then he is not a writer - I write primarily for myself.

I spend days with writers' block. It is a problem.

If writers learn more from their books than do readers, perhaps I may have begun to learn.

I believe strongly in writing groups such as Romance Writers Of America that offer support, information and networking.

All writers are mimics, and I'm not interested in picking up somebody else's style or voice.

My whole life experience feeds into my writing. I think that must be true for every writer. Clearly the Army and combat were major influences; just the same, you need to understand that many of the writers we have now couldn't load a revolver.

Some major writers have a huge impact, like Ayn Rand, who to my mind is a lousy fiction writer because her writing has no compassion and virtually no humor. She has a philosophical and economical message that she is passing off as fiction, but it really isn't fiction at all.

All that writers can do is keep trying to say what is deepest in their hearts.

I enjoy writing, sometimes; I think that most writers will tell you about the agony of writing more than the joy of writing, but writing is what I was meant to do.

The decision to write in prose instead of poetry is made more by the readers than by writers. Almost no one is interested in reading narrative in verse.

Writers let themselves be enticed by the language.

I began the way nearly everybody I ever heard of - I began writing poetry. And I find that to be quite usual with writers, their trying their hand at poetry.

I'm always amazed by writers who tell me they plan everything at the beginning. I feel their writing days must be very bland.

And that's another piece of advice I'll give junior writers; when you get to the point where they take you to lunch, let the editor suggest where to go.

I think writers are very anxious.