Writing
quotes and inspiration on writing
Writing
The mathematical genius Alexander Grothendieck once had a metaphor for solving problems. He suggested that instead of forcing open an impossibly hard kernel with a hammer and chisel, one should simply let it sit in water and wait. Over time, the shell softens and opens with ease. This is also true in writing; time is the only non-substitutable ingr... See more
Epiphanies Come From Waiting
“We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget loves and betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. Keeping a notebook keeps alive some illusion of who we used to be, allowing us to maintain continuity with a self we’ve already outgrown.”
-Joan Didion (from “On Keeping a Notebo
... See moreThe physical world and the cognitive worlds become linked through metaphors.
Victor MacGill • Unravelling the Myth/Metaphor Layer in Causal Layered Analysis
“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”
—Terry Pratchett
"Mostly when I think of pacing, I go back to Elmore Leonard, who explained it so perfectly by saying he just left out the boring parts." - Stephen King
"writing fiction in America as we enter the twenty-first century is no job for intellectual cowards. There are lots of would-be censors out there, and although they may have different agendas, they all want basically the same thing: for you to see the world they see… or to at least shut up about what you do see that’s different." - Stephen King
"The situation comes first. The characters—always flat and unfeatured, to begin with—come next." - Stephen King
"my books tend to be based on situation rather than story. Some of the ideas which have produced those books are more complex than others, but the majority start out with the stark simplicity of a department store window display or a waxwork tableau." - Stephen King
"Still, I believe the first draft of a book—even a long one—should take no more than three months, the length of a season." - Stephen King