“I used to think that: whenever I heard that someone had taken 10 years to write a novel, I'd think it must be a big, serious book. Now I think, 'No - it took you one year to write, and nine years to sit around eating Kit Kats.” ThinkingWritingYearsBookBigsUsedNovelTakenHeardSeriousEatingNineNine Years Author:Ian Rankin
“It appeared that after first contemplating a book on some subject, and after giving serious preliminary attention to it, I needed a period of subconscious incubation which could not be hurried and was if anything impeded by deliberate thinking.... Having, by a time of very intense concentration, planted the problem in my subconsciousness, it would germinate underground until, suddenly, the solution emerged with a blinding clarity, so that it only remained to write down what happened as if in a revelation.” IfsThinkingGivingWritingFirstsBookProblemAttentionHappenedSubjectsSeriousNeededPeriodsSolutionsIntenseClarityRevelationsConcentrationContemplatingSubconsciousDeliberateIncubation Author:Bertrand Russell
“I think it's a very old and deep-seated double standard that holds that when a man writes about family and feelings, it's literature with a capital L, but when a woman considers the same topics, it's romance, or a beach book - in short, it's something unworthy of a serious critic's attention.” ThinkingMenWritingBookFeelingsRomanceLiteratureAttentionSeriousStandardsCriticsBeachTopicsUnworthyAbout FamilyDouble Standard Author:Jennifer Weiner
“I used to split my time between writing, music and painting. I would work on a book and then abandon it, start a band, do an album, quit music, then do a gallery show. Eventually I decided to give writing a serious shot.” GivingWritingBookShowsUsedPaintingSeriousBandShotsDecidedAlbumsQuittingMy TimeAbandonSplitsGalleryWriting Music Author:Isaac Marion
“Once you are a proper, serious law-maker, you can't break the laws you're writing.” WritingLawBreakSeriousMakers Author:Louise Mensch
“It's hard to say when my interest in writing began, or how. My mother read to my sister and me every night, and we always loved playing make-believe games. I had a well-primed imagination. I didn't start thinking about writing as a serious pursuit, a career I could have, until after college.” ThinkingWritingBelieveWellsHardMotherNightGamesInterestImaginationCareersCollegeSeriousPursuitMy SisterEvery NightMake BelievePlaying Make Believe Author:Sara Zarr
“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
“The honest and serious student of American history will recall that our Founding Fathers managed to write both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution without using the term 'democracy' even once. No part of any of the existing state Constitutions contains any reference to the word. [The men] who were most influential in the institution and formulation of our government refer to 'democracy' only to distinguish it sharply from the republican form of our American Constitutional system.” MenWritingStatesGovernmentFormFatherTermDemocracyHonestStudentsHe ManSeriousRepublicanConstitutionIndependenceInstitutionsHistoricalRecallsAmerican HistoryDeclarationFoundingInfluentialOur Founding FathersDeclaration Of Independence Author:Clarence Manion
“Great, big, serious novels always get awards. If it's a battle between a great, big, serious novel and a funny novel, the funny novel is doomed.” IfsWritingBigsFunnyLiteratureNovelFateSeriousBattleAwardsDoomedAward WinningWinning Awards Author:Neil Gaiman
“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
“Until recently we’ve only been able to speculate about story's persuasive effects. But over the last several decades psychology has begun a serious study of how story affects the human mind. Results repeatedly show that our attitudes, fears, hopes, and values are strongly influenced by story. In fact, fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than writing that is specifically designed to persuade through argument and evidence.” WritingMindHumansFactsStoriesShowsSeemsAbleLastsValuesBeliefResultsAttitudeFictionStudyPsychologyEffectsSeriousEvidenceArgumentDecadesHuman MindPersuasive Author:Jonathan Gottschall
“Nine-tenths of the value of a sense of humor in writing is not in the things it makes one write but in the things it keeps one from writing. It is especially valuable in this respect in serious writing, and no one without a sense of humor should ever write seriously. For without knowing what is funny, one is constantly in danger of being funny without knowing it.” ShouldWritingValuesKnowingDangerSeriousValuableNineSense Of HumorBeing Funny Author:Robert Benchley