“Writing is my therapy. In addition to my real therapy. God knows where I'd be without it. I'd probably still be at my last job, working in HR at a religious organization. I was horribly miscast.” KnowsWritingStillsRealJobsLastsReligiousOrganizationTherapyGod Knows Author:Jenny Lawson
“My favorite music to sing would be my own songs, my original songs, just because I know them, you know I write the tunes, so my favorite songs are the newest ones that I write. That's what I like to sing the most, because it means something, it's real, it comes from me.” KnowsWritingMeanRealWould BeSongMy OwnOriginalsMy FavoriteTunesFavorite SongFavorite Music Author:Paul McDonald
“But the real life of a writer resides in showing up at the keyboard every day, with the necessary patience and mercy, and making the best decisions you can on behalf of your people. It’s a slow process. It often feels hopeless, more like an affliction than an art form. Most of us will have to find our readers one by one, in other words, and against considerable resistance. If anything qualifies us as heroic, it’s that private perpetual struggle. Put down the magazine, soldier. Forget about the other guy. Remember who you are.” PeopleIfsFeelsWritingArtRealRememberFormGuyProcessDecisionForgetStruggleReaderMercyWho You AreSoldierReal LifeResistanceMagazinesHopelessHeroicPerpetualAfflictionBehalfOther GuysKeyboardsShowing UpRemember Who You Are Author:Steve Almond
“I was writing very early, like I was involved in our high school literary magazine, which was called 'Pariah.' The football team was the Bears, and the literary magazine was 'Pariah.' It was great. It was definitely a real sub-culture. But I wrote stories for them.” WritingRealStoriesSchoolCultureTeamFootballBearsInvolvedHigh SchoolMagazinesFootball TeamPariahs Author:Tom Perrotta
“The whole trick is to make it feel like you're spying on real people's lives as they get through the day. When I'm writing, I have to trick myself as a writer. If I consciously say, 'I'm writing,' I feel all this pressure and somehow it doesn't feel as real as when it doesn't seem to count as much.” PeopleIfsFeelsWritingRealWholeSeemsLike YouPressureTricks Author:David O. Russell
“Fiction writing was in my blood from a very young age, but I never considered writing as a real career. I thought you had to have some literary pedigree to be a successful author, the son of Hemingway or Fitzgerald.” WritingRealAgeYoungFictionCareersSuccessfulBloodSonYoung AgeFiction WritingPedigree Author:James Rollins
“In the life of a real writer, nothing is ever lost, no word you write is a waste of your time or energy.” WritingRealEnergyLostWaste Author:Larry Brooks
“I watched my life as if it were happening to someone else. My son died. And I was hurt, but I watched my hurt, and even relished it, a little, for now I could write a real death, a true loss. My heart was broken by my dark lady, and I wept, in my room, alone; but while I wept, somewhere inside I smiled.” IfsWritingHeartLittlesRealHurtDarkLossRoomsSonBrokenMy HeartHappeningsDiedMy SonI Was Hurt Author:Neil Gaiman
“How on earth could that be done? If you try to laugh and say 'No' at the same time, it sounds like neighing - yet people are perpetually doing it in novels. If they did it in real life they would be locked up.” PeopleIfsWritingTryingRealDoneWould BeEarthSoundNovelLaughingReal LifeLockedLocked Up Author:Hilaire Belloc
“It's a real gift to be able to have the works of brilliant, great people to learn from and build from. It gives you so much more to draw on, and then you don't have to be all about three-chord pop songs. I don't really like that kind of writing.” PeopleGivingWritingKindRealAbleSongThreeDrawsPopsBrilliantChordsGreat PeoplePop Song Author:Regina Spektor
“For a writer, they say write what you know. As a performer, you find it in yourself, in your heart. You relate to the character. You try to live it, try to have it be real for you.” KnowsWritingTryingHeartRealCharacterRelatePerformersBeing Real Author:Uma Thurman
“...But I don't think I'm the only person who is tired of books and movies full of paper-doll characters you don't care about, who have no self-respect and no respect for anybody or any institution....And I don't want to sound preachy or Victorian, but I'm tired of amorality in fiction and in real life. Immorality is a fascinating human dilemma that creates suspense for the readers and tension for the characters, but where is the tension in an amoral situation? When people have no personal code, nothing is threatening and nothing is meaningful.” PeopleThinkingWantWritingHumansPersonsBookRealSelfCharacterCareSoundFictionSituationReaderPaperInstitutionsTiredDon't CareMeaningfulReal LifeSuspenseCodeTensionSelf RespectFascinatingThreateningDollsDilemmaI'm TiredImmoralityVictorianNo RespectBooks And MoviesAmorality Author:Olive Ann Burns
“It has long been a tradition among novel writers that a book must end by everybody getting just what they wanted, or if the conventional happy ending was impossible, then it must be a tragedy in which one or both should die. In real life very few of us get what we want, our tragedies don't kill us, but we go on living them year after year, carrying them with us like a scar on an old wound.” IfsWantShouldWritingYearsLongBookRealEndsWantedDiesNovelImpossibleGoes OnTraditionTragedyWoundsReal LifeScarConventionalHappy EndingsOld Wounds Author:Willa Cather
“Here's my answer to the very real existential crisis that grips me midway through everything I've ever tried to do: I think stories help us fight the nihilistic urges that constantly threaten to consume us.” ThinkingWritingRealHelpingStoriesFightingAnswersCrisisUrgesExistentialExistential CrisisMidway Author:John Green
“At the risk, then, of being shunned by some of my gloomier peers, I venture to tell you that writers work like demons, suffer greatly, and are also happy, in unmistakable ways, some of the time. If we had no knowledge of happiness, our novels wouldn't sufficiently resemble real life. Some of us are even made a little bit happy, on occasion, by the writing process itself. I mean, really, if there wasn't some sort of enjoyment to be derived, would any of us keep doing it?” IfsWayWritingMeanLittlesMadeRealSufferingBitsProcessNovelRiskLittle BitReal LifeOccasionsEnjoymentDemonPeersVentureWriting Process Author:Michael Cunningham
“Certainly a decade and a half out in the real world, bashing my head against things, probably made me into a more textured writer. It gives you something to write about.” WorldGivingWritingMadeRealHalfDecadesReal World Author:Richard K. Morgan
“I really like writing from real-life experiences. Audiences seem to prefer the stuff I couldn't have made up.” WritingMadeRealSeemsStuffAudienceReal LifeLife ExperienceReal Life Experiences Author:Rebel Wilson
“My first real writing job was at 'Rolling Stone,' so I wrote about rock-and-roll and politics and the like. At the time, I really didn't know what I wanted to write, and I did a bunch of investigative journalism.” KnowsWritingFirstsRealWantedJobsRocksStonesBunchJournalismRollingRock And RollRolling StonesInvestigative Journalism Author:Tim Cahill
“Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.” IfsShouldWritingRealHardCodeProgrammingCommentProgrammersComputer ProgrammingProgramming LanguagesComputer LanguageComputer ProgrammersWriting Code Author:Tom Van Vleck
“Real programmers don't write in PL/I. PL/I is for programmers who can't decide whether to write in COBOL or FORTRAN.” WritingRealProgrammersCobol Author:Tom Van Vleck
“I love it when characters surprise you, just like real people. When I write a scene I just try to make the characters behave in a way that feels natural to them. Sometimes that means they make a left turn and do something unexpected. Those are always the best scenes in my opinion.” PeopleWayFeelsWritingTryingMeanRealSometimesCharacterTurnsLeftNaturalOpinionSceneSurpriseBehaveUnexpectedSomething Unexpected Author:Brad Falchuk
“There are no real guidelines or maps in Australia as to how to write a show, whereas in Hollywood it's where the TV industry is created and there's a lot of work that goes into development.” WritingRealShowsTvsDevelopmentIndustryHollywoodAustraliaMapsGuidelines Author:Jason Gann
“Real writers - serious writers with serious subjects, who earn their living at it - all seem to write in small rooms with that knotty-pine 1974 look on the top-floor rear of their houses. Rooms with views.” WritingLooksRealSeemsHouseRoomsViewsSubjectsSeriousSmall RoomsRoom With A ViewSerious Subjects Author:Peter York
“Writing, overall, has never been what I'd call fun. It's fulfilling. It doesn't come real easy for me.” WritingRealFunEasyFulfilling Author:Iris DeMent
“Acting becomes my real job, writing becomes my second job, and then when I turn 50, I think I'm going to open up an interior decorating company.” ThinkingWritingRealJobsTurnsActingCompanyInteriorsReal JobsDecoratingInterior Decorating Author:Ester Dean
“For me, poetry is an evasion of the real job of writing prose.” WritingRealJobsPoetryProsePoetry IsEvasionReal Jobs Author:Sylvia Plath
“So, you see, it's a real chore for me to write a book review because it's like a contest. It's like I'm writing that book review for every bad book reviewer I've ever known and it's a way of saying [thrusts a middle finger into the air] this is how you ought to do it. I like to rub their noses in it.” WayWritingBookRealKnownAirMiddleOughtFingersNosesReviewsContestsThrustChoresReviewersBook ReviewMiddle Finger Author:John Irving
“Sometimes I feel that the people I'm writing are more real to me than the people around me. When you take that imaginative leap, you're living so much in that world.” PeopleWorldFeelsWritingRealSometimesLeapImaginative Author:Zoe Kazan
“I'm not really an autobiographical writer, though I use lots of stuff from my life to make my stories seem real. But when I actually write about myself, I get very confused.” WritingRealStoriesUseSeemsStuffConfusedRevelations Author:Jeffrey Eugenides
“Writing a novel is a very hard thing to do because it covers so long a space of time, and if you get discouraged it is not a bad sign, but a good one. If you think you are not doing it well, you are thinking the way real novelists do. I never knew one who did not feel greatly discouraged at times, and some get desperate, and I have always found that to be a good symptom.” IfsThinkingWayFeelsWritingWellsLongRealHardFoundSpaceNovelNovelistsThings To DoDesperateSymptomsDiscouragedHard Things Author:Maxwell Perkins
“The world is full of novels in which characters simply say and do. There are certainly legitimate genres in which this is sufficient. But in real and lasting writing the character is.” WorldWritingRealCharacterNovelGenreSufficientLastingLasting Love Author:Ruth Park
“I wanted to take my writing to another level. I wanted to write stuff that was personal for real. It's one thing to write a lyric that sounds nice in that line - that's not very tricky - but it's a different thing to write something that sounds nice and actually comes from someplace real.” WritingDifferentRealWantedStuffSoundLinesLevelsNiceOne ThingDifferent ThingsTricky Author:Tove Styrke
“I'm always writing. It's kind of a curse: You never stop. But I need isolation to write. So the real meat of the material comes when I'm off the road.” NeedsWritingKindRealMaterialsCurseMeatIsolation Author:Taylor Momsen
“I think because I try to keep things as real as I can, or I try to start from a place of reality, I almost don't have the imagination to write a book that's not set where I am.” ThinkingWritingTryingI CanBookRealRealityImagination Author:Maria Semple
“I'd say that any character or setting can be given a bit of an otherworldly sheen and be the better for it. The one thing I insist on with my own writing is that I won't let magic solve my characters' real world problems. The solutions have to come from the characters themselves.” WorldWritingRealCharacterProblemGivenBitsMy OwnMagicOne ThingSolutionsSolveSettingSettingsReal WorldWorld Problems Author:Charles de Lint
“You can write when you're dyslexic, you just can't read it. But I started writing short stories as a child and I found the short story format a real nice one. I love short stories and I love short documentaries or short films of any kind.” WritingKindChildrenRealStoriesFilmFoundNiceShort StoryDocumentariesFormatShort LoveShort FilmsDyslexicWriting ShortWriting Short Stories Author:Billy Bob Thornton
“For me, directing is like writing with meat. I can write live, in real time, and change things and be confident that I'm helping the movie.” WritingI CanRealHelpingMeatBe ConfidentTime And Change Author:David Ayer
“Writing is a completely private act. It's in a way like play but very serious play, and sometimes I can escape into the fictional world that I'm creating so fully as to see hours go by without my noticing it. I think that kind of suspension of time and that mindfulness is a real gift.” ThinkingWorldWayWritingKindI CanRealSometimesPlayHoursSeriousMindfulnessCreatingNoticingSuspensionFictional Worlds Author:Antonya Nelson
“In some ways I'm a reticent man, and for quite a number of years there wasn't very much of my real true deep feelings in my writing.” MenWayWritingYearsRealFeelingsNumbersDeep FeelingReal True Author:Norman MacCaig
“When a child who has been conceived in love is born to a man and a woman, the joy of that birth sings throughout the universe. The joy of writing or painting is much the same, and the insemination comes not from the artist himself but from his relationship with those he loves, with the whole world. All real art is, in its true sense, religious; it is a religious impulse; there is not such thing as a non-religious subject.” MenWorldWritingChildrenHas BeensArtRealWholeJoyArtistUniverseBornReligiousLove IsSubjectsPaintingBirthArt IsWhole WorldImpulseNon Religious Author:Madeleine L'Engle
“Is not the real experience of each individual very limited? And, if a writer dwells upon that solely or principally, is he not in danger of repeating himself, and also of becoming an egotist? Then, too, imagination is a strong, restless faculty, which claims to be heard and exercised: are we to be quite deaf to her cry, and insensate to her struggles? When she shows us bright pictures, are we never to look at them, and try to reproduce them? And when she is eloquent, and speaks rapidly and urgently in our ear, are we not to write to her dictation?” IfsWritingTryingLooksRealShowsIndividualSpeakStrongImaginationStruggleHeardCryDangerBecomingEarsClaimsFacultyRestlessDeafEloquentDictation Book:Jane Eyre Source: Jane Eyre