There Is No Rule on How to Write

There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

Whom Do You Write For?

A writer, or at least a poet, is always being asked by people who should know better: “Whom do you write for?” The question is, of course, a silly one, but I can give it a silly answer. Occasionally I come across a book which I feel has been written especially for me and for me only. Like a jealous lover I don’t want anybody else to hear of it. To have a million such readers, unaware of each other’s existence, to be read with passion and never talked about, is the daydream, surely, of every author.

W.H. AUDEN

Writing is A Solitary Occupation

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

JESSAMYN WEST

Words in Prose Ought to Express the Intended Meaning

Words in prose ought to express the intended meaning; if they attract attention to themselves, it is a fault; in the very best styles you read page after page without noticing the medium.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Planning to Write is Not Writing

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.

E.L. DOCTOROW

Screenwriting is a Horse Race Without A Finish Line

A guy much smarter than I once described [screenwriting] as a horse race without a finish line. Just because you wanna do it doesn’t mean you’re gonna get to do it. However, if you are really talented, you are so separated from the overwhelming majority of the people who are trying to do it that I think you’ll get noticed. It may take a few times. Rejection is as much a part of this as physical fitness is part of being a Marine. If you’re not prepared to do a lot of push-ups, don’t enlist in the Marines. If you’re not prepared to be rejected, don’t try to write films.

PETER HYAMS

Push It

Push it. Examine all things intensely and relentlessly. Probe and search each object in a piece of art; do not leave it, do not course over it, as if it were understood, but instead follow it down until you see it in the mystery of its own specificity and strength.

ANNIE DILLARD

You Leave a Big Chunk of the Work to be Done

You leave a big chunk of the work to be done. It’s like a lot of jigsaw pieces, and the reader has got some of them and you’ve got some of them.

WILLIAM TREVOR

You Can't Learn to Write in College

You can’t learn to write in college. It’s a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do—and they don’t. They have prejudices. They may like Henry James, but what if you don’t want to write like Henry James? They may like John Irving, for instance, who’s the bore of all time. A lot of the people whose work they’ve taught in the schools for the last thirty years, I can’t understand why people read them and why they are taught.

RAY BRADBURY

With Maturity the Writer Becomes More Secure

At the beginning of their careers many writers have a need to overwrite. They choose carefully turned-out phrases; they want to impress their readers with their large vocabularies. By the excesses of their language, these young men and women try to hide their sense of inexperience. With maturity the writer becomes more secure in his ideas. He finds his real tone and develops a simple and effective style.

JORGE LUIS BORGES