Writing Quotes - Page 757

I write thank-you notes the minute I throw the wrapping paper away.

I set up this little office space with a piano in it and I thought that would be quite a novel way of writing the album, to make it like a job - a romanticised version of the 9 to 5. I think that was probably my favourite time. I made sure I walked there every day, which took me about an hour.

The music I was writing for 'Hamlet' needed to be very simple because there was so much going on with the dialogue in that play, so I felt like the music had to complement that - so that carried on through; I was working on the soundtrack and the album simultaneously.

I feel like I write about life and love and death; it's just what I gravitate towards.

writing is the most personal form of prayer.

We should write an elegy for every day that has slipped through our lives unnoticed and unappreciated. Better still, we should write a song of thanksgiving for all the days that remain-now that we know how to cherish them.

My writing process is very organic. I start with an idea. I have the general story arc and the cast. But then I sit down to write, and things change.

The one reader I'm trying to please as I write is me, and I'm pretty difficult to please.

My first job is to write the characters as full and authentic people as well as I can.

I didn't 'decide' to write YA, per se. But every time I thought of a story, it featured characters 15, 16, 17.

I was a 'learn by doing' writer - I never took any formal writing classes. So it took a long time to figure things out and find my voice.

It's hard to say when my interest in writing began, or how. My mother read to my sister and me every night, and we always loved playing make-believe games. I had a well-primed imagination. I didn't start thinking about writing as a serious pursuit, a career I could have, until after college.

I do have a little bit more confidence in - or at least familiarity with - my process. For example, when it feels like it's going badly or that I'm lost, I know I'll eventually find my way because I've been through it before. But writing itself is still hard.

I wanted to be free to write the way I wanted to write, and my impression of Christian publishing, at least in fiction, was that there wasn't room for what I wanted to write.

I had been working my first record really hard and toured the heck out of it. I didn't have anything to write about so touring with The Decemberists was what I needed. I could work and take in the world again. You're just the side man and don't need all the info. You're also less busy than when your name is on the ticket, so I had days free to read, watch movies, and just look up.

Writers of novels live in a strange world where what's made up is as important as what's real.

Writing about the 1950s has given me tremendous respect for my mother's generation.

Copywriters, journalists, mainstream authors, ghostwriters, bloggers and advertising creatives have as much right to think of themselves as good writers as academics, poets, or literary novelists.

The new contract between writers and readers is one I'm prepared to sign up to. I've met some fascinating people at events and online. Down with the isolation of writers I say! And long live Twitter.

Writers need each other.

Everyone assumes writers spend their time lounging around, writing and occasionally striking a pose whilst having a think.

I've found myself moved by letters and diaries in archives as well as trashy, summer blockbusters. It's possible to make a connection with any kind of writing - as long as the writing is good.

Like most little girls, I found the lure of grown-up accessories astonishing - lipstick, perfume, hats and gloves. When I write female characters in my historical novels, getting these details right is vital.

For me, writing stories set, well, wherever they're best set, is a form of cultural curiosity that is uniquely Scottish - we're famous for travelling in search of adventure.

It's nice to dig deeper into people who may look one way but always have a story to tell. I obviously write about that a lot.