I am, when you stop to think of it, a member of a fairly select group: the final handful of American novelists who learned to read and write before they learned to eat a daily helping of video bullshit.
When I teach writing, I always tell my students you should assume that the audience you're writing for is smarter than you. You can't write if you don't think they're on your side, because then you start to yell at them or preach down to them.
And when I'm writing, I write a lot anyway. I might write pages and pages of conversation between characters that don't necessarily end up in the book, or in the story I'm working on, because they're simply my way of getting to know the characters.
As far as writing, I like watching bad movies. Nothing stops me in my tracks more than watching a great film like 'The Godfather' or 'Dog Day Afternoon' or 'The Graduate.' You watch one of those, and you never want to write again. Whereas with bad mo...
Writing fantasy lets me imagine a great deal more than, say, writing about alligators, and lets me write about places more distant than Florida, but I can tell you things about Florida and alligators, let you make the connection all on your own.
Inevitably I draw on my own relationships when I write, so if I'm writing about a fight between a husband and his wife, of course I'm going to think about a recent fight with my husband. Or if I'm writing about sisters, of course I'm going to think a...
I never know what I'm going to write next. If I'm still writing the book but I'm very near the end, and I begin to think of what I'd like to do next, then I'll know that what I'm writing is in hand. I'll think of an ending and it will be fine.
First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to under...
Why does the writer write? The writer writes to serve — hopelessly he writes in the hope that he might serve — not himself and not others, but that great cold elemental grace which knows us. A writer I very much admire is Don DeLillo. At an award...
A writer’s life is half ambition and half anxiety, and there has to be both. It is no good writing a novel and feeling fine, and it is no good writing a whole novel feeling miserable. It has to be both, that mixture of anxiety and ambition, and you...
I did not think that I was angry, but clearly anger was reflected in my writing. I did not think that I had been affected emotionally, but it was clear from my writing that I was still very emotional about the trial some six months after it ended.
They could not write their names, but I can write mine, and I will again, somewhere where it will last for a long, long time. I will find Ky, and then I will find that place.
For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.
To fight discouragement, remind yourself of the basics: I can write. I have the opportunity to do so. I love what I write. Now smile and be thankful.
Writing in English was a major challenge. I didn't want other songwriters to write for me. I wanted to preserve the spirit of my songs in Spanish. I am the same Shakira in English as I am in Spanish.
I loved to write; in my late teens I had a 'zine. But it wasn't until I went back to school, later on in my 20s, that I actually saw that I had writing talent.
I don't write so that people will understand me, I write because I know they don't. And, I can't help feeling like I should at least give them the illusion that they do.
Why should I write a play? I don't have to write a play, do I? But somehow, I think that's what I'm here for, so I'd better do it.
All stories I write are compulsive. Anything I've ever written was because I don't have a choice. I write stories because I can't wait to tell it, I can't wait to see how it ends.
I'm a believer. I don't go to church. I don't belong to any particular religion, but I do believe in God. I couldn't write what I write about and be creative without a certain form of belief.
I used to be a freelance journalist, so I had to write fast, but I always found writing nonfiction constraining. I like the freedom of fiction, where I get to invent everything, and tidy, conclusive endings are within my control.
