Do you find it hard to get ideas or start writing? Lots of people–even famous authors–share the same problem. Here are some of my favorite quotations from writers and others about coming up with ideas, writing and not writing.
Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any. – Orson Scott Card
Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats. – Howard Aiken
If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word. – Margaret Atwood
Nighttime is really the best time to work. All the ideas are there to be yours because everyone else is asleep. – Catherine O’Hara
Don’t get it right, just get it written. – James Thurber
If you’re going to be a writer, the first essential is just to write. Do not wait for an idea. Start writing something and the ideas will come. You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow. – Louis L’Amour
The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair. – Mary Heaton Vorse
Lower your standards and keep writing. – William Stafford
I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately I am inspired at 9 o’clock every morning. – William Faulkner
Do you have a favorite quotation that motivates or inspires you to write?
I read this caption for a cartoon recently in Parade magazine. All writers who have at least tried to get something published can relate 🙂
Publisher to writer:
We love all the words in your book-now could you just put them in an entirely different order?
I like Mason Cooley’s words:
There are different rules for reading, for thinking, and for talking. Writing blends all three of them.
and I empathise with this one from Graham Greene:
Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.
Tash Hughes recently posted…Choosing your blog hosting arrangement