Write in the Gush

The secret of it all, is to write in the gush, the throb, the flood, of the moment – to put things down without deliberation – without worrying about their style – without waiting for a fit time or place. I always worked that way. I took the first scrap of paper, the first doorstep, the first desk, and wrote – wrote, wrote…By writing at the instant the very heartbeat of life is caught.

WALT WHITMAN

Go to New York

My advice for aspiring writers is go to New York. And if you can't go to New York, go to the place that represents New York to you, where the standards for writing are high, there are other people who share your dreams, and where you can talk, talk, talk about your interests. Writing books begins in talking about it, like most human projects, and in being close to those who have already done what you propose to do.

WALTER KIRN

Fiction Writers Don't Understand What They Do

Most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don’t understand very much about what they do—not why it works when it’s good, not why it doesn’t when it’s bad.

STEPHEN KING

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