Write Lines
- A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it.
Dr Samuel Johnson - A writer judging his own work is like a deceived husband – he is frequently the last person to appreciate the true state of affairs.
Robert Traver - If there is a category of human being for whom his work ought to speak for itself, it is the writer.
Isaac Asimov - It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer. Those who do not remain amateurs.
Gerald Brenan - It is the writer's privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart.
William Faulkner - A writer's ambition should be to trade a hundred contemporary readers for ten readers in ten years' time and one reader in a hundred years' time.
Arthur Koestler - The most solid advice to a writer is this, I think: try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell, and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.
William Saroyan - Each writer is born with a repertory company inside his head and...as you get older, you become more skilful in casting them.
Gore Vidal - Every written word is a victory against death.
Michel Butor - There are many reasons why novelists write – but they all have one thing in common: a need to create an alternative world.
John Fowles - There are no dull subjects. There are only dull writers.
H.L. Mencken - Consider the postage stamp. Its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing until it gets there.Josh Billings
- Writing, like life itself, is a voyage of discovery.
Henry Miller - Easy writing makes hard reading.
Ernest Hemingway - Concentrate on quality, not quantity – both in formulation of ideas and in the writing itself.
Lidia de Leon - Don't think of what's in your head that you want to get on paper, but what kind of effect you want to have at any given moment on the readers' minds and emotions.
Sol Stein
- Think before you write. All too often, we get stories that are well researched and well reported, but are simply not thought through. The writer presents a collection of facts without making an effort to synthesise them. As a writer, give yourself time after you've done the research to sit down, think about what it all means, and put it together. THEN write it down
Joel Gurin - Either write something new or write something from a unique viewpoint. The problem is, you don't know if something is new unless you are widely read. I still get stories about characters who have exciting adventures until they wake up and find out it was all a dream.
Mary Ellen Strote - You must write what you want to write, staying as close as possible to what the truth is for you, as much of the time as possible.
Judith Arcana - "I'll never forget this idea" is the devil's whisper. Catch everything that matters in your notebook.
Richard Bach - The biggest obstacle to professional writing today is the necessity for changing a typewriter ribbon.
Robert Benchley - Write about what you know – or do your research to expand your basis of information – and your book will ring true and be believable.
Ilene Hochberg - Before writing, spend a lot of time thinking about it, and after writing, a lot of time thinking about it and maybe rewriting. Learn as much about everything as possible, by every possible means, direct and vicarious. Keep learning throughout life.
Poul Anderson - If you can't write it down, you don't have an idea.
Andy Rooney - The simple declarative sentence is the soul of good writing.
David Rosenbaum - I once told a friend who was a great storyteller to write her fiction with the same unaffected but colourful style she used when telling her friends a story. Once she started thinking of writing as storytelling, instead of writing, her prose became much more straightforward and effective.
Larry Kessenich - Cut all the adjectives. I have never seen this fail to improve writing. In time you will learn which few adjectives can stay.
Sol Stein - Organise your material. A 2,500 word magazine article is not War And Peace. It may be a masterpiece, but only if it is tightly and coherently organised, so that the information it contains is accessible and understandable.
Elizabeth Crow - Starting a novel is like going to a football match. You may know what the ingredients are but you still can't tell beforehand what's going to happen. The only way you can resolve the issue is by playing it.
Thomas Keneally - The single most important thing is to know your characters. Don't just create them, but become intimate with them.
Michael Seidman - Use killer leads. They're hard to come up with but they'll set you apart from most of the slush that editors see. Each time you begin an article, pretend all of the manuscripts the editor reads that day will be judged solely on leads (which, by the way, many are). Imagine that everyone's lead is eyecatching. Then make yours better.
John Wood - To cure a tendency to tell rather than show, try writing a story as a play without parenthetical instructions for the actors.
Stanley Schmidt - Weed out overused "weasel words" like nice, great, wonderful, fine.
Joe S. Johnson - Beware of always speaking of things in terms of something else. Use metaphorical language sparingly, for maximum effect. Rely on evoking things simply and clearly.
Larry Kessenich - I once stayed in a hotel, next door to a well-known writer. He never talked about writing. Each night I heard his typewriter, hour after hour, past midnight. Everybody else in the hotel was asleep. The sound of that machine reminds me, still, that what writers do is write.
Richard Bach - If you have to make a living at it, you can't rely on inspiration. It doesn't come along often enough. I write for a couple of hours every day, even if I only get a couple of sentences. I put in that time. You do that every day, and inspiration will come.
Dave Barry - In my mind, I'm still a cub reporter trying to earn his first by-line. I work hard and have done since I was 16 years old. It sounds like a cliche, but it's true: luck, happenstance and all the rest are fine, but it's funny that the harder you work, the luckier you get.
Bob Greene - I used to write because I wanted to become rich, and when I didn't become rich, I wrote because I wanted to become famous, and when I didn't become famous, I wrote because I liked to write. And that's when I started to make a little money and gain a little notice.
Thomas Sullivan - I think the main thing holding people back is not technique but fear. It's not a question of training, but whether you dare. Most people don't dare. Some never find the courage. They think, "Who am I to speak?" Well, goddamn it, you're a human being. Of course you have a right to speak. Get started. Do it. Fools rush in.
Richard Rhodes - I doubt if most non-professionals have any idea of the amount of work a pro regularly turns out. In a typical year, for instance, I have written three novels, two screenplays, a non-fiction book proposal (fifty pages and a detailed outline), and several short stories and articles: 2,000 typed manuscript pages, including revision drafts. And I am light years away from being the most prolific pro around.
Joe Gores - I wrote four hours a day for ten years before I was published. Working without teachers or books on writing, I was a long time discovering a method of work. Years later when a very fine teacher remarked: "You know, a good story is not written but rewritten", I replied somewhat wistfully: "Yes, I know. I wish someone had told me that long ago."
Kaatje Hurlbut - If you cannot live by your writing, the translation into words of your manner of thinking cannot be effective, for your whole aim and object is to be so completely good that the maximum number of people, whether they approve or not, will have to pay money to read you. The market is the ultimate test for the craftsman. That it should also be the first and only test for the hack is unimportant.
Geoffrey Household - Putting together a mystery novel is something like putting together a salad: every now and then the ingredients come out in just the right proportions.
Agatha Christie - Never lose time. You can replace money if you lose a wallet. You can buy a new typewriter if your home is ransacked. You can marry again if a divorce overtakes you. But that minute that has vanished unnecessarily will never come back, and what's more, it was the best minute you will ever have, for all future minutes will come when you are older and more nearly worn out.
Isaac AsimovEmail wayahead@cix.compulink.co.uk
