Daily Writing Quote

Writing Keeps You Liberal

2012-02-17T09:09:00.008-05:00

"Writing keeps you liberal. It shakes up your ideas about everything. Half the fiction we love, maybe more, looks nothing like the pictures their authors started out with."
Roger Rosenblatt, Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing

Do Your Own Work

2012-02-16T09:00:00.006-05:00

"Never try to imitate favorite or bestselling authors. Never follow current trends; what is a hot topic today may well be ice cold by the tie a novel is written and submitted for publication. Imitators are seldom successful. An individual's unique style and vision are what editors are looking for."
Bill Pronzini, 101 Habits of Highly Successful Novelists: Insider Secrets from Top Writers

What to Leave Out

2012-02-15T09:00:00.006-05:00

"Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip."
Elmore Leonard, Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing

The Gifts of Being a Writer

2012-02-14T09:09:00.011-05:00

"One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places and explore. Another is that writing motivates you to look closely at life, at life as it lurches by and tramps around."
Anne Lammott, Bird by Bird

Writers are People Watchers

2012-02-13T09:00:00.014-05:00

"All writers are people watchers. If you want characters that ring true, take a really close look at the people around you: that buttoned-up old lady on the train as well as the girl with fourteen facial piercings who hangs out at your local coffeehouse.Watch your hairdresser, your dog walker, your dentist. (Okay, maybe not your dentist.) Begin with them, and then let your imagination run wild."
Janet Evanovich, How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author

The Need to Write

2012-02-12T09:00:00.004-05:00

"For me writing is a necessity. I exist in sentences."
Tom Grimes, Mentor

The Temperament of Writers

2012-02-11T09:09:00.012-05:00

"If writers possess a common temperament, it's that they tend to be shy egomaniacs; publicity is the spotlight they suffer for the recognition they crave."
Gail Caldwell, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship

The First Rule of Fiction Writing

2012-02-10T09:09:00.008-05:00

"The first rule of fiction writing is to burrow yourself into the consciousness of the narrator in order to view the world from his or her perspective."
John McNally, After the Workshop: A Novel

Women's Writing

2012-02-09T09:09:00.001-05:00

"There is still the feeling that women's writing is a lesser class of writing, that to write about what goes on in the nursery or the bedroom is not as important as what goes on in the battlefield, that to write about relationships between men and women is not as important as writing about a moon shot."
Erica Jong, Conversations with Erica Jong (Literary Conversations Series)

How to Write Interestingly

2012-02-08T09:09:00.008-05:00

"The more you know the world and the wider the net you cast in your society, the more interesting your books will be."
Gore Vidal, Views from a Window: Conversations with Gore Vidal. [First Edition]

Panning for Gold

2012-02-07T09:09:00.006-05:00

"Writing is like panning for gold. You put your pan down close to the mother lode and scoop up a handful of gravel. You know the grains of ore are sparkling in front of you, if only you could see them. Knowing this, even when you find nothing but broken stones it's hard to throw them away."
Nancy Willard, Writers on Writing (Bread Loaf Anthology)

The Magic Hour

2012-02-06T09:09:00.002-05:00

"At night, when the objective world has slunk back into its cavern and left dreamers to their own, there come inspirations and capabilities impossible at any less magical and quiet hour. No one knows whether or not he is a writer unless he has tried writing at night. "
H.P. Lovecraft, Lovecraft: A Study in the Fantastic

Publishing

2012-02-05T09:09:00.004-05:00

"As difficult as it is for a writer to find a publisher — admittedly a daunting task — it is twice as difficult for a publisher to sort through the chaff, select the wheat, and profitably publish a worthy list."
Olivia Goldsmith, The Bestseller

A Superficial Mind

2012-02-04T09:09:00.002-05:00

"No good novel will ever proceed from a superficial mind."
Henry James, Theory of Fiction: Henry James (Bison Book)

A Best Seller Mind

2012-02-03T09:09:00.003-05:00

"Only a person with a Best Seller mind can write Best Sellers."
Aldous Huxley, Essays New and Old

Four Questions

2012-02-02T09:09:00.003-05:00

"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?"
George Orwell, In Front of Your Nose: 1946-1950 [GEORGE ORWELL V04 IN FRONT -OS]

A Touch of Madness

2012-02-01T09:09:00.004-05:00

"You can't be a proper writer without a touch of madness, can you?"
Doug Wright, Quills

Fine Sentiments

2012-01-31T09:09:00.009-05:00

The Journals of Andre Gide Volume IV:1939-1949

"It is with fine sentiments that bad literature is made."
André Gide, The Journals of Andre Gide Volume IV:1939-1949

Compulsions

2012-01-30T09:09:00.003-05:00

"Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile."
Sinclair Lewis, Go East, Young Man: Sinclair Lewis on Class in America

Truer Than History

2012-01-29T09:09:00.005-05:00

"Fiction is much more true than history. History is about other people. Fiction is about you."
Laurie Frankel, The Atlas of Love: A Novel

Energy and Imagination

2012-01-28T09:00:00.004-05:00

"Writing great fiction involves some combination of energy and imagination that cannot be energized or realized forever. Strong talents can simply exhaust their gift, and they do."
Larry McMurtry, Books: A Memoir

Briefer is Better

2012-01-27T09:09:00.006-05:00

"One of the saddest lessons any writer has to learn is that anything he writes can be cut and that, worse news, the writing is often —not always but more often than not— better for being briefer."
Joseph Epstein, In a Cardboard Belt!: Essays Personal, Literary, and Savage

Books are Forever

2012-01-26T09:09:00.002-05:00

"I've given my memoirs far more thought than any of my marriages. You can't divorce a book."
Gloria Swanson, Write the Story of Your Life

The Itch of Literature

2012-01-25T09:09:00.003-05:00

"When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen."
Samuel Lover, Legends and Stories of Ireland By Samuel Lover

Toy and Tool

2012-01-24T09:09:00.002-05:00

"It has not been for nothing that the word has remained man's principal toy and tool: without the meanings and values it sustains, all man's other tools would be worthless."
Lewis Mumford, The Transformations of Man