Writing Quotes - Page 620

I used to sit home with my computer and write. After the Newbery, I probably spend more than half my time on the road.

All my books take a long time to research. I spend several months researching before I start writing, and in the middle of writing I often have to stop and look up stuff. At my local library, I am one of the best customers! The research takes several months.

It's often about the simple things, isn't it? Painting and photography are first about seeing, they say. Writing is about observing. Technique is secondary. Sometimes the simple is the most difficult.

I know the action in the street is excitin' But Jesus, between all the bleedin’ ‘n fightin’ I’ve been readin’ ‘n writin’.

[Opetaia Foa'i] brought in the melody and the lyrics, but the lyrics were in Tokelauan, and so, we talked about what it could mean and whether this could be the ancestor song. So, I started writing English lyrics to sort of the same melody.

My rhymes are gonna kill, so I suggest you write your will and leave your [expletive] to me.

I think, there are a couple of songs. I'm really proud of How far I'll Go. I literally locked myself up in my childhood bedroom at my parents' house to write those lyrics. I wanted to get to my angstiest possible place. So I went method on that.

Memoirs have at their heart a content that "happened" to someone in real life. Is that what you are itching at in your question, so that if you are a reviewer or you are writing a critique you might feel as if you are stepping on someone's actual face?

These words "accessible" and "emotionally available" get thrown at us from agents and editors and publishers - or the reverse - if it's not all goo-ey and sentimental we're told it's "cold" or "uncaring" or "emotionally vacant." In other words, responses to women's writing in particular continue to be "gendered."

I never thought about doing a sequel when I was actually writing 'The Magicians.' I only ever considered it a standalone.

I don't make outlines or plans because whenever I do, they turn out to be useless. It is as if I am compelled to violate the scope of any outline or plan; it is as if the writing does not want me to know what is about to happen.

My favorite leader is George Washington. Because he came from very modest circumstances. He wasn't the son of a plantation owner. He was the son of a farmer. He had no formal education, very frustrated. He started writing a diary when he was in his teens, and he wrote things like, "When I grow up, I want to be respected. When I grow up, I want to be successful. When I grow up, I want to know things." What I find fascinating about Washington is he wanted to make something of himself.

Never open your story with a character thinking, I advise my students. As a further precaution, don’t put a character in a room alone – create a friend, a bystander, a genie, for God’s sake, any sentient creature with whom your main character can converse, perhaps argue or, better yet, engage in some action. If a person is out and doing, it’s more likely that something interesting might happen to her or him. Shut up in a room with only his thoughts for company well, that way lies fictional disaster.

I write books to influence people I will never meet. Books increase my audience and my message.

I'm interested in ways of writing about the social world that don't assassinate the life that's in it

Love, Fear, and Esteem, - Write these on three stones.

Our people still need support. Support us through writing your government officials. We are still on the verge of extinction, with continued injustices brought against us.

I have been writing for 50 years and readers still read my first book from when I was in the Marine Corps.

I know writers have to be crazy. But more than that that, they have to get made and stay mad. If things don't make a writer mad, he'll end up writing Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottantail.

Anyone who goes into writing has to find out somewhere along the line, he's either naive or insane.

Nothing prevents our denying life by suicide. well then, kill yourself, and you won't discuss. If life displeases you, kill yourself! You live, and cannot understand the meaning of life - then finish it, and do not fool about in life, saying and writing that you do not understand it. You have come into good company where people are contented and know what they are doing; if you find it dull and repulsive - go away!

In general, teaching writing makes me a far better reader because there's so many ways to write a good sentence or a good story, and as a teacher I'm obliged to consider them all, rather than staying in the safety of my own tendencies.

I've always been the audience that I wanted to reach, so I write for myself.

I store away my experiences and don't feel really happy until I've found a way to write about them.

What I love about writing is that you don't need anyone's permission to do it. You can just get up in the morning, grab a pad and pen and start writing. With acting you're really beholden to everyone else.