#writing

When I write I am trying to express my way of being in the world. This is primarily a process of elimination: once you have removed all the dead language, the second-hand dogma, the truths that are not your own but other people's, the mottos, the slogans, the out-and-out lies of your nation, the myths of your historical moment - once you have removed all that warps experience into a shape you do not recognise and do not believe in - what you are left with is something approximating the truth of your own conception. ↗

— Zadie Smith

#writing #experience

A short story is a writer's way of thinking through experience... Journalism aims at accuracy, but fiction's aim is truth. The writer distorts reality in the interest of a larger truth. ↗

— John L'Heureux

#journalism #truth #writing #experience

You could use a moth like that as a symbol in a novel, but it was trite, wasn’t it? The old moth-to-the-flame image had been used and used again. It was the stuff of amateur poetry. And she, having so little experience crafting a story, would be the most in danger of falling into trite approaches. If she wrote a novel, it probably would be about her father. And the male Luna moth would haunt its pages. Everyone would recognize the work as that of a first novelist. “She wrote about herself through the lens of her father.” The really good novelists, Laura thought, put their fathers, and maybe their mothers too, deeper into the stories. Which, she suddenly thought, might redeem Melville just the littlest bit. ↗

— L.L. Barkat

#moby-dick #novel-writing #writers #writing #experience

For most of the process, nothing but faith, fueled by your own stubbornness, will be pulling you along. The work that you've done on the book so far won't be much comfort, because so much of it will be insufferable crap, until the very last moment, when you figure out how to fix it and everything comes together. ↗

— Kristin Cashore

#faith

Remember to have a little faith. When you die, I believe, God isn't going to ask you what you published. God's going to ask you what you wrote. ↗

— T.M. McNally

#writing #faith

...ending a book with a sequel in such a way that the reader still has faith in the characters and in the writer. That's finesse. ↗

— Shandy L. Kurth

#books #reading #sequel #writing #faith

He's a gypsy killer. He has a special gypsy killing knife. ↗

— Coco J. Ginger

#breaking-up #breakups #broken-heart #broken-hearted #broken-hearted-quotes

I think I've lost my faith and I can't stop writing because I don't know how much longer I can hold on. ↗

— Emma Forrest

#writing #faith

I have never felt like I was creating anything. For me, writing is like walking through a desert and all at once, poking up through the hardpan, I see the top of a chimney. I know there's a house under there, and I'm pretty sure that I can dig it up if I want. That's how I feel. It's like the stories are already there. What they pay me for is the leap of faith that says: "If I sit down and do this, everything will come out OK. ↗

— Stephen King

#creating #desert #faith #house #idea

Write about small, self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory. If you remember them, it's because they contain a larger truth that your readers will recognize in their own lives. Think small and you'll wind up finding the big themes in your family saga. ↗

— William Knowlton Zinsser

#writing #family