#writ

Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn’t work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they’re done they’re done. ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#creativity #writing #writing-advice #writing-process #writing-advice

Do not write to impress others. Authors who write to impress people have difficulty remaining true to themselves. A better path is to write what pleases you and pray that there are others like you. Your first and most important reader is you. If you write a book that pleases you, at least you know one person will like it. ↗

— Guy Kawasaki

#writing-advice

One should write only those books from whose absence one suffers. In short: the ones you want on your own desk. ↗

— Marina Tsvetaeva

#russian #writing-advice #writing-advice

It's hard for me to believe that people who read very little - or not at all in some cases - should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written. Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time - or the tools - to write. Simple as that. ↗

— Stephen King

#writing-advice

Writing is a muscle. Smaller than a hamstring and slightly bigger than a bicep, and it needs to be exercised to get stronger. Think of your words as reps, your paragraphs as sets, your pages as daily workouts. Think of your laptop as a machine like the one at the gym where you open and close your inner thighs in front of everyone, exposing both your insecurities and your genitals. Because that is what writing is all about. ↗

— Colin Nissan

#writing-advice

Remember...we don't see objects, we see light. [...] Light can do anything water can do--flow, wash, trickle. It can do anything an artist can do--paint, burnish, carve. Candlelight falls, licks a face. There is always light in a room. ↗

— Janet Fitch

#description #writing #writing-advice

a good writer should draw the reader in by starting in the middle of the story with a hook, then go back and fill in what happened before the hook. Once you have the reader hooked, you can write whatever you want as you slowly reel them in. ↗

— Roland Smith

#writing #writing-advice

...about clichés. Avoid them like the plague. ↗

— Khaled Hosseini

#writing-advice #writing-advice

The journey home was made short by Ronan’s tales of research on love. He confessed to Katie he was not good at expressing his inner feelings. He adopted the Socratic Method and asked all his friends and family for advice. They proved no help so he enlisted the help of Lovely Lucy Looney, the local librarian. He went and researched love, sex and flirting. He spoke of Lucy’s shock on his many visits to the library and his mortification but Katie’s love was worth all embarrassment. She was touched by his Herculean efforts and knew he was her soul mate ↗

— Annette J. Dunlea

#annette-j-dunlea #irish-writer #family

There is a ruthlessness to the creative act. It often involves a betrayal of the status quo. ↗

— Alan Watt

#writing-advice #writing-from-the-heart #writing-process #writing-advice