thoughts on writing
The point is, writing well, even an ordinary letter or a well-considered e-mail, demands the generosity of your time, effort, and thought. You have to care enough that it’s worth your energy, weighing that cost against the cost of not doing it.
Kurt Vonnegut • Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style
My only ritual for writing is that I do it every morning. I wake up and get to work.
Walter Mosley • This Year You Write Your Novel
I have learned so many things from music about writing. I think there are three important elements: rhythm, harmony, and free improvisation. I learned these things from music, not from literature. And when I started to write, I tried to write as though I were playing music.
Deborah Treisman • The Underground Worlds of Haruki Murakami
Without a first draft, there would be no novel, so this is without a doubt the most important accomplishment of the writer.
Walter Mosley • This Year You Write Your Novel
One-thousand or two-thousand words every day for the next twenty years. At the start, you might shoot for one short story a week, fifty-two stories a year, for five years. You will have to write and put away or burn a lot of material before you are comfortable in this medium. You might as well start now and get the necessary work done.
Ray Bradbury • Zen in the Art of Writing
If you have a plan—if you know the end when you start—it’s no fun to write that novel.
Writing is not about getting letters on a page. It’s not about getting done with text. It’s finding a clear and simple expression for what we feel, mean, and want to express
Good input=good output: to be a great writer, we must be great readers. I’ve found that the quality of the texts I read influences the quality of the writing I produce.