#writing

Ideas come at any moment -- except when you demand them. Most ideas come while I'm physically active, at the gym, with friends, gardening, so I always carry pen and paper. My first draft is always written in longhand. But once the first dozen chapters, more like short stories, are written, then momentum builds until I can't leave the project until it's done. ↗

— Chuck Palahniuk

#short-story

The most important step in developing skillful speech is to think before speaking. ↗

— Allan Lokos

#peace #teaching #writing-craft #art

We may know that the work we continue to put off doing will be bad. Worse, however, is the work we never do. A work that’s finished is at least finished. It may be poor, but it exists, like the miserable plant in the lone flowerpot of my neighbour who’s crippled. That plant is her happiness, and sometimes it’s even mine. What I write, bad as it is, may provide some hurt or sad soul a few moments of distraction from something worse. That’s enough for me, or it isn’t enough, but it serves some purpose, and so it is with all of life. ↗

— Fernando Pessoa

#email #letter-writing #letters #writing #art

Of course, in fairness, I must remind you of this: that we writers are the most lily-livered of all craftsmen. We expect more, for the most peewee efforts, than any other people. ↗

— Brenda Ueland

#expectations #perseverance #writing #art

I found that many gifted people are so afraid of writing a poor story that they cannot summon the nerve to write a single sentence for months. The thing to say to such people is: "See how *bad* a story you can write. See how dull you can be. Go ahead. That would be fun and interesting. I will give you ten dollars if you can write something thoroughly dull from beginning to end!" And of course, no one can. ↗

— Brenda Ueland

#art

We never thought we were writing for posterity, because at the time everyone assumed that all the great standards had already been written by Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein... The songs we were writing were supposed to be temporary things, of the period, like comic books. ↗

— Mike Stoller

#assumed #because #been #berlin #books

If someone wanted to be a runner, you don't tell them to think about running, you tell them to run. And the same simple idea applies to writing, I hope. ↗

— Markus Zusak

#interview #motivational #rule #the-guardian #writing

If I’m going to write a book every American will want to read, it’s got to have lots of pictures. Those pictures must also move, and all the words in the book must be spoken and available audibly for all the readers to hear as they watch.

 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#books #movie #movies #pictures #readers

Virtually every writer I know would rather be a musician. ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#writing #music

Like a magpie, I am a scavenger of shiny things: fairy tales, dead languages, weird folk beliefs, fascinating religions, and more. ↗

— Laini Taylor

#writing #religion