Writing Is Something You Do Alone

Writing is something you do alone. It's a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don't want to make eye contact while doing it.

JOHN GREEN

People Want Biography

People want biography. People want memoir. They want you to tell them that the story you're telling them is true. The thing I'm telling you is true, but it did not always happen to me.

DOROTHY ALLISON

Every Story Presents Its Own Problems

Every story presents its own problems. For twenty-two years I’ve done this work, but I’m a beginner every time, searching for a new voice and a path that will lead to territory I haven’t charted.

MELANIE RAE THON

Don’t Tell Anybody What Your Book Is About

Don’t tell anybody what your book is about and don’t show it until it’s finished. It’s not that anybody will steal your idea but that all the energy that goes into the writing of your story will be dissipated.

DAVID WALLECHINSKY

No Book Ever Gets Written by Thinking About It

No book ever gets written by thinking about it or going bowling or playing golf. You have to put your butt down and spend many, many hours in front of a computer or a piece of paper, and don’t get up, even if you’re blocked or don’t know what’s going to happen next or you don’t know what the next sentence should be. You’re like a donkey, you just keep plodding. And that quality of perseverance and stubbornness is really important.

TIM O'BRIEN

The Work Of Any Great Artist Is Directed At the Heart

The work of any great artist is directed at the heart, the spirit and the soul, not the brain. Critics feel with their brains, they probably fuck with their brains too. But the worst part is they fill their brainy shit into you and then we’re all made to feel we have to analyze literary works based on all this brainy shittage. No, if you feel Beckett, you see something else: that his writing evokes a sort of sacred chaos, a blissful holiday for the brain and a profoundly pleasurable call to the spirit.

AMITA MUKERJEE

You Do Not Learn How to Write Novels in a Writing Program

You do not learn how to write novels in a writing program. You learn how by leading an interesting life. Open yourself up to all experience. Let life pour through you the way light pours through leaves.

PAT CONROY

You Must Have Discipline

You must have discipline for writing. It is not an easy task. It is very lonely. You're all alone. You are not in company. You are not enjoying yourself in that sense. You are enjoying yourself in another sense. You are delving into your depths, but you are profoundly lonely. It is one of the loneliest careers in the world. In the theater, you are with companions, with directors, actors. In film. In an office. In writing, you are alone. That takes a lot of strength and a lot of will to do it.

CARLOS FUENTES

Writing Is Not A Race

Writing is not a race. No one really “wins.” The satisfaction is in the effort, and rarely in the consequent rewards, if there are any.

JOYCE CAROL OATES

Writing is a Kind of Double Living

Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind.

CATHERINE DRINKER BOWEN