#process

Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard." (Interview with NEH chairman Bruce Cole, Humanities, July/Aug. 2002, Vol. 23/No. 4) ↗

— David McCullough

#creative-process #precision #thinking #thought #writing

Don't write about Man; write about a man. ↗

— E.B. White

#the-writing-process #writing-process

My life will be the best illustration of all my work. ↗

— Hans Christian Andersen

#illustration #life #work #writing #writing-process

In the final exam in the Chaucer course we were asked why he used certain verbal devices, certain adjectives, why he had certain characters behave in certain ways. And I wrote, 'I don't think Chaucer had any idea why he did any of these things. That isn't the way people write.' I believe this as strongly now as I did then. Most of what is best in writing isn't done deliberately. ↗

— Madeleine L'Engle

#writing-process

Thus, from admiration of one wise and innocent child, and from a misheard remark, the process that not even Aristotle could codify was triggered. Where do you get your ideas? I purposely mishear things. ↗

— Harlan Ellison

#writing-process

Sometimes I scare myself at how easily I slip inside my mind and live vicariously through these characters. ↗

— Teresa Mummert

#reality #writing #writing-process #writing-process

People talk about books that write themselves, and it's a lie. Books don't write themselves. It takes thought and research and backache and notes and more time and more work than you'd believe. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#creative-process #writing #writing-process

Nobody reads a book to get to the middle. ↗

— Mickey Spillane

#writing-craft #writing-process #writing-process

There is only one thing a writer can write about: what is in front of his senses at the moment of writing... I am a recording instrument... I do not presume to impose “story” “plot” “continuity”... Insofar as I succeed in Direct recording of certain areas of psychic process I may have limited function... I am not an entertainer... ↗

— William S. Burroughs

#writing-process #writing-process

Don't worry about what you're writing or whether it's good or even whether it makes sense. ↗

— Lauren Oliver

#writing-process #writing-process