#writing

Steven wrote to me today, saying, 'Don't you feel like sticking your head out of the window and yelling, "I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!!!"' Yes, absolutely. Solidarity. Fear is always the same. Different worries with different scripts, but the same baseline fear. ↗

— Russell T. Davies

#writing-process

The irritating question they ask us -- us being writers -- is: "Where do you get your ideas?" And the answer is: Confluence. Things come together. The right ingredients and suddenly: Abracadabra! ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#confluence #creative-process #ideas #writing #writing-process

[N]othing about a book is so unmistakable and so irreplaceable as the stamp of the cultured mind. I don't care what the story is about or what may be the momentary craze for books that appear to have been hammered out by the village blacksmith in a state of intoxication; the minute you get the easy touch of the real craftsman with centuries of civilisation behind him, you get literature. ↗

— Dorothy L. Sayers

#craft #craftsmanship #creative-process #crudeness #culture

To literary critics a book is assumed to be guilty until it proves itself innocent. ↗

— Nelson Algren

#criticism #critics #literature #writing #literary-criticism

Writing historical fiction is a legitimate us of Multiple Personality Disorder. ↗

— Peggy Ullman Bell

#historical-fiction

The best thing about writing programs is that it rationalized the apprenticeship of a writer. ↗

— Russell Banks

#apprenticeship #best #programs #rationalized #thing

God, what a ghastly enterprise to be in, though--and what an odd way to achieve success. I'm an exhibitionist who wants to hide, but is unsuccessful at hiding; therefore, somehow I succeed. ↗

— David Foster Wallace

#artist #exhibition #irony #persona #success

If you are destined to become a writer, you can't help it. If you can help it, you aren't destined to become a writer. The frustrations and disappointments, not even to mention the unspeakable loneliness, are too unbearable for anyone who doesn't have a deep sense of being unable to avoid writing. ↗

— Donald Harington

#writing-life #life

A writer has no use for the clock. A writer lives in an infinity of days, time without end, ploughed under. ↗

— Jeanette Winterson

#art

People should know better than to be an ass in front of writers. We immortalize things. Lots of things. And we take liberties with character descriptions. ↗

— Michelle M. Pillow

#character #fantasy #fiction #michelle-pillow #romance-novel