Writing Quotes
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No matter how many people try, no matter how many fancy songwriters in Los Angeles try to break it down to a formula... to an extent, there isn't a science to writing great songs, I suppose. For me, it's always about melody - it doesn't matter what genre of music you're writing, if there's a strong melodic thing somewhere, whether that's in a vocal or in a guitar part or a sample. Something that sticks in your brain, that seems to be something that works.
Lauren Mayberry
Chvrches
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When I submitted samples, I had only written stories to give myself something to draw. I was told, "The art is good, but not quite professional yet. But, I like the writing." I've been a writer for almost a half a century. It's very cool.
Len Wein
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I just write all the time. In my whole life I've never had what I've heard people talk about writer's block. I've never had that. Life is like a song to me. I just hear everything in music, so I have never once thought "Well, I'm never gonna be able to write again." I've got thousands of songs.
Dolly Parton
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Words are both my vocation and my avocation - reading, writing, editing, teaching.
Christina Baker Kline
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I don't know why, but I don't fancy writing love songs; I never have.
Lukas Forchhammer
Lukas Graham
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There's an awful temptation to just keep on researching. There comes a point where you just have to stop, and start writing.
David McCullough
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Whenever I'm writing a song, if I have an idea for the music video, that's how I know it's a good song.
Charli XCX
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When you're not writing, you're not doing anything else either because everything you do goes into the writing.
Allen Iverson
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I think our songwriting has evolved. We can show that we have continued to branch out and do different stuff and incorporate different instruments. When it comes to writing, I think that we have pushed the envelope. We can do whatever we want to try - a longer song or a shorter song, some different instruments, some piano, an intro with just vocals, something that's scathing. Whatever. However we feel the song should go, that's what we will do. With that mindset, I think it's made us better writers.
John R. Bush
Armored Saint
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I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth.
Jane Austen
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Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader something to look for so they aren’t distracted by the total lack of content in your writing.
R. K. Milholland
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Researching real history has taught me to be bolder and more imaginative in building fantasy worlds and writing fantasy characters, to seek out the margins of history and the forgotten tales that illuminate the whole, complex truth of our flawed yet wondrous nature as a species.
Ken Liu
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Seem to be telling this, but really telling that. Three-dimensional writing, like three-dimensional chess. Nabokov was the other master of that. You could learn something from Nabokov on every page he ever wrote.
Donald E. Westlake
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In seventh grade I had a magical teacher, her name was Mrs. Fried. She wore only pink, she drove a pink Mustang, and she was half out of her head. But very inspiring. And one day she said, "Take out a paper and pen and write something about peace." For some reason I wrote a poem on Noah - I don't know why I chose Noah - and it turned out it was for a contest for the UN. I ended up winning and reading the poem in front of the UN. I remember Mrs. Fried telling me, "When you write your first book, dedicate it to me." That was like, "Whoa."
Darren Aronofsky
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I don't actually have to think very hard when I'm writing. I mean, there are times where it's a task, and you have to plug away and plug away. But then there are times when a song writes itself in 15 minutes, and you're just struggling to keep up with it.
Patty Griffin
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The way that I've always viewed my career, I always do what comes to me. I don't write forty songs per album, I write fifteen to twenty songs and pick the ones that represent this period of my life the most.
Rick Anthony DeJesus
Adelitas Way
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A blend of fact and fiction has been used in various forms since the dawn of creative writing, starting with sagas and epic poems.
Antony Beevor
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The best way is to read it all every day from the start, correcting as you go along, then go on from where you stopped the day before. When it gets so long that you can't do this every day read back two or three chapters each day; then each week read it all from the start. That's how you make it all of one piece.
Ernest Hemingway
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Actually, my first group was a folkloric group, an Argentine folkloric group when I was 10. By the time I was 11 or 12 I started writing songs in English. And then after a while of writing these songs in English it came to me that there was no reason for me to sing in English because I lived in Argentina and also there was something important [about Spanish], so I started writing in Spanish.
Gustavo Alfredo Santaolalla
Bajofondo
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I never had any lessons. When I first started playing I used to read music. I was very interested in music. But when I started playing in groups I did a silly thing and dropped it. It's great if you can write things down.
John Henry Bonham
Band of Joy
