...Quotes on Reading, Writing @ Literature...

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The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”
― Terry Pratchett

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You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it.
That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.”
― Octavia E. Butler

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“Literature isn’t a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; the belief it inspires is what counts.”

PHILIP ROTH

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“Novel-writing is, for the novelist, a game of let’s pretend.”

PHILIP ROTH

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“Writing is frustration – it’s daily frustration, not to mention humiliation. It’s just like baseball: you fail two-thirds of the time.”

PHILIP ROTH

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That “writing about what you know” never made sense to me. It’s silly. It’s based on years of realism being the thing that people have elevated to some ridiculous level.

REBEKAH L.FRASER

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"Easy reading is damn hard writing"

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

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When I started writing, I started writing every day. I sign books a lot, and I’ll meet people who say, “I want to be a writer.” And I’ll say, “Do you write every day?” And they say [dreamily], “No, when I get in the mood.” And I think, “Well, sorry, you need to wake up every day in the mood.” I still think about that.

DAVID SEDARIS

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My writing advice is always pretty much the same: Stop thinking about writing, stop reading about writing, stop worrying about writing, and just actually sit in one place and write something.

AUGUSTEN BORROUGHS

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“Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.”
― Lisa See

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“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”

― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

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All writers value the instinctual pull toward writing that is important. A lot of the tools that are needed to sustain a writing career can be taught. People get frustrated in places where they need to push their skills. If I’m unhappy with something while I’m writing or during the revision process, I have techniques and tools to use. Craft and technique can sustain and improve the drive to tell a story. If you have drive to tell a story, anyone should feel that they can have the capacity to tell that story.

JULIA GOLDBERG

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Writing the book was a more extended process and a cumulative process. I’m so much more trained for deadline work. Deadline writing is instilled in me. Now I understand more about calibrating my expectations and patience. You can’t write a book like you’re on a crazed deadline for a year.

JULIA GOLDBERG

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While I’m writing, I often jot down ideas in a little notebook I keep on my desk – plot points, bits of dialogue, notes on structure. I also do try to write a certain number of words every day. One writer friend goes by line count. Whatever it is that helps you get words down on the page, that’s what you should do. But I think it’s good to have a goal in mind when you sit down at your desk.

CHRISTIE SNEED

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The best personal writing [occurs] when you have your eye on the larger story and finding the intersections, and doing the research to find them. The research always enriches the narrative.

KATE BOLICK

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Writing crime fiction and doing investigative journalism can be quite similar…because in essence, both are about telling a great story. A fabulous, riveting, compelling story, with characters you care about and problems that need to be solved. You’re tracking down clues, following leads, and convincing people to talk.

HANK PHILIPPI RYAN

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    The first draft of anything is shit. (Tweet Quote)

    ~Ernest Hemingway

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Write what interests you, not what you think should interest you. Because there’s so much that we feel like we should do. And you get into real trouble as a writer when you’re writing what you should be writing. Not what you want to be writing.

HEIDI PITLOR

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One writer’s routine doesn’t work for another. Figure out what works for you. I find writing in the mornings preferable to writing in the evening. I need daylight and I need coffee. I’m happy if I write for an hour, or if I write one good paragraph. I don’t feel bad because I didn’t write two paragraphs.

ANTHONY VARALLO

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Write what you want to write. Do not follow the market. Do not look at the books [that] are best-sellers and think, “That book is selling, I’m going to write that too!” No. Write for yourself first, and that’s how it will become universal.

CAROLINE LEAVITT