Have you ever felt obsessed with reading about writing? About reading what writers did to learn writing? About the art and craft of writing? Did you ever wonder what gave them those writing genes? Were they born with it or did they learn? Were they brave or lucky ? Hardworking and persistence are important or will dreaming do?
Have you ever wondered about writers being prolific naturally and, minting money? Have you ever wondered what made Agatha Christie write murders so well and Enid Blyton weave magic?
If these questions have entered your mind, then the rest of the post will make sense.
Following are some of the most inspiring quotes about the process of writing
Fill your mind with all kinds of interesting things—the more you have in it, the more will come out of it. Nothing ever comes out of your mind that hasn’t already been put into it in some form or other. It may come out changed, re-arranged, polished, shining, almost unrecognizable—but nevertheless it was you who put it there first. Your thoughts, your actions, your reading, your sense of humour, everything gets packed into your mind, and if you have an imagination, what a wonderful assortment it will have to choose from!”
Enid Blyton
The secret to getting ahead is getting started
Agatha Christie
Getting started is the hardest part
“The best time to plan a book is while you’re doing the dishes.”
Agatha Christie
This happens and that’s why you need to keep a notebook handy, next to the kitchen sink.
If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King
Wiser words you will never hear.
“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it.”― Lloyd Alexander
Sometimes life and fiction are but different names.
“Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”
― William Faulkner
Oh well, even if you don’t throw it out of the window, now you know what it takes.
“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”
― Robert Frost
Your readers feel when you feel it while writing.
“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
This one happens and now you know what to do.
“A word after a word after a word is power.”
― Margaret Atwood
That’s what you and I need to strive for.
In the end, we all become stories.”
— Margaret Atwood
That means you and I are meant to be read someday in the future too! That’s something to look
“Imagination is like a muscle. I found out that the more I wrote, the bigger it got.”
― Philip José Farmer
Use that writing muscle and watch it grow stronger.
“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
That my friend is what works best.
“If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within
Courage is the superpower of everyone who writes and makes it public.
“Writers end up writing about their obsessions. Things that haunt them; things they can’t forget; stories they carry in their bodies waiting to be released.”
― Natalie Goldberg
Write about things you know.
“Anything we fully do is an alone journey.”
― Natalie Goldberg
Writing is a solitary journey. But you need to know people if you want to create engaging characters and connect.
Finally, you just do it because you happen to like it.”
― Natalie Goldberg, Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life
That my dear friend, is why I write.
Tell me in the comments below, why you write.