Writing Quotes
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I do gravitate towards the sad songs because I find them to be more of a challenge for me from a writing perspective. There are things about those songs that do touch people in a way that a fun song can't.
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Of course I knew that writing was terrifically hard work and that there was no secret code, as in a video game, that would unlock Tolstoy-mode, enabling me to crank out canon-worthy novellas before lunch.
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For me, even in my first book, the pleasures of writing anything magical is that it has to be physical. It has to be grounded and very much in this world. Then, I get to play with all the consequences of this new thing.
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I've talked with friends about this: when you write about yourself, that's what people connect to. When you write a sermon or a lesson, that may not reach people. I've learned a lot from people who have been writing about themselves.
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A vacation for me is when I'm home and I'm writing.
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I like simple writing. I'd rather read Hemingway than Burroughs.
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I do like writing. When I was a little kid, I used to love writing funny, silly stories - and my mom would always encourage it. I don't know why I ever stopped!
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I'm very happy for whatever plaudits might come the way of my work, but I never ever sit down to write x with y in view - whether it's a reader, a prize or a sale.
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Women are more complicated communicators than men, who have a tendency to pronounce and bloviate, and that makes for better writing in talky work.
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Writing is one of the few activities where quantity will inevitably make quality. The more you write, the better you're going to get at it.
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When you handwrite something, you're writing your most raw, pure thoughts. If you want to change it, then you have to mark it out, and people can see you laboring over that thought. I think even the act of hand, pen, and paper is much more intimate than with a computer screen.
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Maberry is a master at writing scenes that surge and hum with tension. The pacing is relentless. He presses the accelerator to the floor and never lets up, taking you on a ride that leaves your heart pounding. It's almost impossible to put this book down. Dead of Night is an excellent read.
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I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.
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I dabbled in writing, wrote really bad poetry in high school. I also took a few writing classes when I was an undergrad at Stanford. I was so intimidated.
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If I had to pick an artist that I look up to and am inspired by, it's Matisse because of how many times he would paint the same idea until he felt like he maybe got it right, and I try to do the same thing with my writing.
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Dialogue is generally the worst choice for exposition. When you're writing lines you need to focus on the way people actually talk. And when we talk to each other we never actually explain our terms. We don't say 'Sweetheart, would you pass me the sugar bowl, which we picked up for a song at that antique stall in Munich.'
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In the back of my mind was the constant hankering, almost yearning, to write but something always stopped me in my tracks. Or if I did find my way to put a pen to paper or finger on a keyboard I'd give up after a few minutes. I'd find other things to do: Anything but writing.
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Writing a graphic novel is hard. It feels closer to a screen play than to a novel.
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I think, in writing a memoir, you kind of give order to your life.
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I had something to prove and went in the studio and started writing. I got into fitness and style and learned the whole craft. That was when I wrote everything on the album. I put out 'Don't Ya,' and it took off.
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Artists don't talk about art. Artists talk about work. If I have anything to say to young writers, it's stop thinking of writing as art. Think of it as work.
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Every time I finish a book, I forget everything I learned writing it - the information just disappears out of my head.
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I'm a right pain in the hole for my agent. I won't take certain parts if I think they're offensive or banal. For instance, I won't do a film if I think it's full of violence for violence's sake, or a television drama if I don't think it's intelligent writing.
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I just want to keep writing characters who are interesting and complicated people and interesting roles for women, in TV or film or in theater. I think that's like my 'Blues Brothers' mission.
