#writ

A writer is someone who has taught his mind to misbehave. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#writers #writers-on-writing

I place my fingers upon these keys typing 2,000 dreams per minute and naked of spirit dance forth my cosmic vortex upon this crucifix called language. ↗

— Aberjhani

#books #creativity #determination #dreams #endurance

So we went to bed, assaulted by sleep that fumed at us from medicine glasses, or was wielded from small sweet-coated tablets -- dainty bricks of dream wrapped in the silk stockings of oblivion. ↗

— Janet Frame

#dreams

Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions." (Letter to Alexander Chekhov, May 10, 1886) ↗

— Anton Chekhov

#creative-process #state-of-mind #writing #writing-process

You may be a serious writer if …. 10. your hard drive is littered with random notes and story ideas … but not nearly as littered as your head. 9. you keep pen and paper next to your bed. And in the glove compartment. And in your gym bag. Also on the rim of the bathtub. 8. a day without Roget’s Thesaurus is a day without sunshine. 7. your emotional landscape includes creativity, confidence, elation, frustration, and the occasional neurosis. 6. you’ve ever had to clean peanut butter and bread crumbs off your keyboard, because the work was going well, and you didn’t want to stop for lunch. 5. grammar and punctuation turn you on. 4. your interest in a new acquaintance is directly proportionate to his/her potential as a secondary character. 3. you’ve worn the white e, r, s, and t clean off your keyboard. 2. the search history on your web browser would raise red flags with the FBI, CIA, DEA, and mental health professionals everywhere. 1. you have stories to tell, and you just. Keep. Telling. Them. ↗

— Kathy Disanto

#writers-on-writing #writing-life #mental-health

Over analysis leads to paralysis ↗

— Rebecca Jane

#writers-block

What we need in literature today are vast philosophic horizons; we need the most ultimate, the most fearsome, the most fearless 'Why?' and 'What next?' ("Literature, Revolution, and Entropy") ↗

— Yevgeny Zamyatin

#fearsome #literaturem #ultimate #writing #art

But if I am not a criminal, I beg to be permitted to go abroad with my wife temporarily, for at least one year, with the right to return as soon as it becomes possible in our country to serve great ideas in literature without cringing before little men, as soon as there is at least a partial change in the prevailing view concerning the role of the literary artist. (“Letter To Stalin”) ↗

— Yevgeny Zamyatin

#dissident #expatriate #lierature #writing #art

Advice to young writers wo want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man, write about a man. ↗

— E.B. White

#writing-advice

Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that - but you are the only you. Tarantino - you can criticize everything that Quentin does - but nobody writes Tarantino stuff like Tarantino. He is the best Tarantino writer there is, and that was actually the thing that people responded to - they’re going ‘this is an individual writing with his own point of view’. There are better writers than me out there, there are smarter writers, there are people who can plot better - there are all those kinds of things, but there’s nobody who can write a Neil Gaiman story like I can. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#writing-advice #inspirational