“It can take years. With the first draft, I just write everything. With the second draft, it becomes so depressing for me, because I realize that I was fooled into thinking I'd written the story. I hadn't-I had just typed for a long time. So then I have to carve out a story from the 25 or so pages. It's in there somewhere-but I have to find it. I'll then write a third, fourth, and fifth draft, and so on.” ThinkingWritingYearsFirstsLongStoriesRealizingWrittenPagesLong TimeThirdsFourthDepressingFifthFooled Author:David Sedaris
“The listeners who buy books after a reading multiply that reading; the author who realizes that he or she may be writing on a blank page but is at least not speaking to a blank wall may be encouraged by the experience, and write more.” WritingMayBookReadingRealizingWallPagesBlankListenersBe EncouragedBlank Pages Author:Alberto Manguel
“Twenty-two pages is not a lot of space. Believe me. Having written a bazillion comics, I still find myself more often than nine pages into a script and realizing to my horror that I'm only about a quarter of the way through the story I wanted to tell, and the next thing you know, I'm making fresh coffee and tearing up the floorboards to rewrite.” KnowsWayBelieveStillsTwoBookStoriesWantedNextRealizingSpaceWrittenHorrorPagesTwentiesScriptsCoffeeNineComicQuartersBelieve In MeComic BookTwenty Two Author:Mark Waid
“Poets, if they're genuine, must keep repeating "I don't know." Each poem marks an effort to answer this statement, but as soon as the final period hits the page, the poet begins to hesitate, starts to realize that this particular answer was pure makeshift that's absolutely inadequate to boot. So the poets keep on trying, and sooner or later the consecutive results of their self-dissatisfaction are clipped together with a giant paperclip by literary historians and called their oeuvre.” IfsKnowsTryingSelfTogetherRealizingAnswersResultsEffortParticularPoetPeriodsPurePagesMarkFinalsGenuineStatementsGiantsHistorianBootsSooner Or LaterInadequateDissatisfactionConsecutive Author:Wislawa Szymborska
“There are certain things that I'll hear about and that I think will make a great book and I put it in a file. Sometimes it's a situation that interests me, and I don't even realize what I'm trying to say about it until I get closer to it. Sometimes the book after that I've written 125 pages of, and I can tell you what the book is after that. I just sort of have a linear progression, but more than anything, the topics land in your lap. I don't feel that I go out searching for them.” ThinkingFeelsTryingI CanBookSometimesCertainInterestRealizingSituationWrittenLandPagesTopicsLapFilesProgressionLinearGreat Book Author:Jodi Picoult
“There comes a day when you realize turning the page is the best feeling in the world.” WorldFeelingsRealizingPagesOne DirectionPages Turning Author:Zayn Malik
“I can't compose or play music; I'm not that fortunate. But I can write and I can talk and sometimes when I'm doing either of these things I realize that I've written a sentence or uttered a thought that I didn't absolutely know I had in me... until I saw it on the page or heard myself say it.” KnowsWritingI CanSometimesPlayRealizingSawsWrittenHeardPagesSentencesFortunate Author:Christopher Hitchens
“As an actor, you very rarely have the experience of picking up a script and getting a few pages into it and realizing that what you're holding in your hands is not just a role on a TV show, but it's one of those special parts that comes along, once or twice in a career. If you're lucky, you get an opportunity to do something really memorable and to be part of one of those rare shows that passes into that special category.” IfsShowsHandsActorsOpportunityRealizingCareersRolesSpecialTvsLuckyPagesScriptsMemorableCategoriesTv ShowsLucky You Author:Holt McCallany
“There were a lot of lessons of production to be learned. On the page, the biggest thing you learn on any TV show is how to write to your cast. You write the show at the beginning with certain voices in your head and you have a way that you think the characters will be, and then you have an actor go out there, and you start watching dailies and episodes. Then, you start realizing what they can do and what they can't do, what they're good at and what they're not so good at, how they say things and what fits in their mouth, and you start tailoring the voice of the show to your cast.” ThinkingWayWritingCharacterShowsCertainActorsVoiceCan DoRealizingTvsFitLessonsPagesMouthsCastsProductionsEpisodesTv Shows Author:Ronald D. Moore
“Sometimes when reading aloud to my husband, I'll start crying. It completely stuns me. As if the words in my body and on the page - in relation to each other - are cocooned against my own feelings about what I'm writing until they're loosed in the air and become their own. Then I realize what I may or may not have done.” IfsWritingMaySometimesDoneFeelingsBodyReadingRealizingMy OwnAirCryHusbandPagesRelationMy HusbandReading Aloud Author:Julianna Baggott
“I always tell my students to go back after a hundred pages and rewrite from the beginning. It's really harder if you've already finished four hundred pages and realize the first hundred aren't working.” IfsFirstsRealizingFourStudentsPagesHundredHarderFinished Author:Yiyun Li
“Forward steps are made by giving up old armor because words are built into you - in the soft typewriter of the womb you do not realize the word-armor you carry; for example, when you read this page your eyes move irresistibly from left to right following the words that you have been accustomed to.” GivingHas BeensMadeEyeMovingLeftRealizingStepsExampleGiving UpPagesBuiltFollowingAccustomedWombArmorTypewriters Author:William S. Burroughs
“Every good story needs a complication. We learn this fiction-writing fundamental in courses and workshops, by reading a lot or, most painfully, through our own abandoned story drafts. After writing twenty pages about a harmonious family picnic, say, or a well-received rock concert, we discover that a story without a complication flounders, no matter how lovely the prose. A story needs a point of departure, a place from which the character can discover something, transform himself, realize a truth, reject a truth, right a wrong, make a mistake, come to terms.” NeedsWritingWellsMatterCharacterStoriesCoursesReadingTermRealizingMistakeFictionRocksPagesTwentiesFundamentalsVery GoodLovelyProseRejectsConcertsAbandonedHarmoniousGood StoryDepartureWorkshopsFiction WritingComplicationPicnicsRock Concerts Author:Monica Wood
“Basically I wake up in the morning and I think everything's going to be great. I'm really kind of optimistic, and I look forward to a new day. I pick up 'The New York Times,' and I look at the front page and realize that once again I'm wrong. I start to fixate on stuff.” ThinkingLooksKindStuffRealizingMorningFrontsNew YorkPagesPicksWake UpOptimisticNew DayNew York Times Author:Lewis Black
“When they [visitors to his studio:] learn about the six-week daily-strip deadline and the 12-week Sunday-page deadline, a visitor almost never fails to remark: "Gee, you could work real hard, couldn't you, and get several months ahead and then take the time off?" Being, as I said, a slow learner, it took me until last year to realize what an odd statement that really is. You don't work all of your life to do something so you don't have to do it.” YearsSaidRealHardLastsRealizingFailingWeekMonthsSixPagesStudiosStatementsOddSundayLast YearRemarksDeadlineVisitorsLearnersTime Off Author:Charles M. Schulz
“You cannot open the pages of the New Testament without realizing that one of the things that makes it so 'new,' in every way, is that here men and women call God 'Father.' This conviction, that we can speak of the Master of the universe in such intimate terms, lies at the heart of the Christian faith.” MenWayHeartChristianLyingUniverseFatherSpeakTermRealizingMastersPagesMen And WomenConvictionIntimateTestamentNew TestamentChristian FaithGod Father Author:Sinclair B. Ferguson
“Sometimes, your eyes see something your brain doesn't. You pick up a nmewspaper and yourhead gives you a phrase that you didn't consciously read yet. You walk into a room and you realize something's out of place before you've bothered to properly look. I felt that happening now." "Sam's thoughts on page 304 of Linger.” GivingLooksSometimesEyeFeltRealizingWalksRoomsBrainPagesHappeningsPicksPhrasesBothered Author:Maggie Stiefvater
“Losing Chloe had been like reading a wonderfulook only to realize that all the pages past a certain point were blank.” PastCertainReadingRealizingPagesLosingBlankChloe Author:Jodi Picoult