#writing

All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane. ↗

— George Orwell

#literature #writing #writing-craft #motivational

J.R.R.Tolkien has confessed that about a third of the way through The Fellowship of the Ring, some ruffian named Strider confronted the hobbits in an inn, and Tolkien was in despair. He didn't know who Strider was, where the book was going, or what to write next. Strider turns out to be no lesser person than Aragorn, the unrecognized and uncrowned king of all the forces of good, whose restoration to rule is, along with the destruction of the evil ring, the engine that moves the plot of the whole massive trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. ↗

— Ansen Dibell

#character-building #fiction-writing #lord-of-the-rings #motivation #plot

He has discovered the truths that keep writers chained to their desks: the primacy of the inner life and the sheer exhilaration of creating a world from scratch. ↗

— Barbara Klein Moss

#motivational

I don’t just want a gripping story line. I shoot for the three dimensional literary Braille to a silent Scorsese movie ↗

— Carl Henegan

#writing-craft #movies

I have completed and uncompleted screenplays, but they both fall into the category of “unsold.” I’ve seen quite a few movies where the screenplays seemed to be in the “uncompleted” category yet still got sold and made into movies, so I generally refer too all screenplays as “sold” or “unsold.” But that’s just my own filing system. ↗

— Gary Reilly

#movies

But the thing I remember most about the screening in October twenty years ago was the moment Julian grasped my hand that had gone numb on the armrest separating our seats. He did this because in the book Julian Wells lived but in the movie's new scenario he had to die. He had to be punished for all of his sins. That's what the movie demanded. (Later, as a screenwriter, I learned it's what all movies demanded.) When this scene occurred, in the last ten minutes, Julian looked at me in the darkness, stunned. "I died," he whispered. "They killed me off." I waited a bit before sighing, "But you're still here." Julian turned back to the screen and soon the movie ended, the credits rolling over the palm trees as I (improbably) take Blair back to my college while Roy Orbison wails a song about how life fades away. ↗

— Bret Easton Ellis

#screenplays #writing #movies

Writing is the dragon that lives underneath my floorboards. The one I incessantly feed for fear it may turn and devour my ass. Writing is the friend who doesn't return my phone calls; the itch I'm unable to scratch; a dinner invitation from a cannibal; elevator music for a narcoleptic. Writing is the hope of lifting all boats by pissing in the ocean. Writing isn't something that makes me happy like a good cup of coffee. It's just something I do because not writing, as I've found, is so much worse. ↗

— Quentin R. Bufogle

#music

I tried to look at writing a song almost like solving a mystery. The song was there, buried somewhere in my brain. All I had to do was follow the clues until I figured it out. ↗

— Jon Skovron

#songwriting #music

Just me, my music, and the voices in my head. ↗

— Christie Silvers

#fun #true #writers-on-writing #music

The music lets me see the story but the story doesn't let me write the words. ↗

— Elizabeth J. Kolodziej

#words #writers-block #writing #music