You need a motive to write & a bit of self-delusion…advice from a non-fiction author QUOTES FOR WRITERS (and people who like quotes)
Three guidelines from American non-fiction writer Michael Lewis It’s always good to have a motive to get you in the chair. If your motive is money, find another one. I … Continue reading
Why there will always be books with cardboard covers and paper pages – Neil Gaiman QUOTES FOR WRITERS (and people who like quotes)
As Douglas Adams once pointed out to me, over twenty years before the Kindle showed up, a physical book is like a shark. Sharks are old: there were sharks in … Continue reading
When and Why You Should Stop Reading…Hari Kunzru QUOTES FOR WRITERS (and people who like quotes)
I used to force myself to finish everything I started, which I think is quite good discipline when you’re young, but once you’ve established your taste, and the penny drops … Continue reading
Grief, Ignorance and Slowly becoming a Writer – Viet Thanh Nguyen QUOTES FOR WRITERS (and people who like quotes)
…I learned about grief as I worked on that damned short story collection. I did not know what I was doing, and what I also did not know, facing my … Continue reading
The Difference between a novelist and a writer of picture books…Quotes for Writers (and people who like quotes)
If you are a novelist, I think you start out with a 20 word idea, and you work at it and you wind up with a 200,000 word novel. We, … Continue reading
Never write down to children – E.B. White author of Charlotte’s Web QUOTES FOR WRITERS
Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, … Continue reading
Love the reader, says Ellen Gilchrist QUOTES FOR WRITERS (and people who like quotes)
How often I have tried to tell writing students that the first thing a writer must do is love the reader and wish the reader well. The writer must trust … Continue reading
A story is more like a house than a journey…Alice Munro QUOTES FOR WRITERS (and people who like quotes)
A story is not like a road to follow … it’s more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling … Continue reading
What every writer has to learn…Robin McKinley QUOTES FOR WRITERS (and people who like quotes)
One of the biggest, and possibly the biggest, obstacle to becoming a writer… is learning to live with the fact that the wonderful story in your head is infinitely better, … Continue reading
The good stuff comes later, said SF writer Octavia E. Butler QUOTES FOR WRITERS (and people who like quotes)
You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one … Continue reading
‘And by the way…’ Sylvia Plath on the worst enemy to creativity
And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is … Continue reading
Why great novels are dangerous – Julian Barnes QUOTES FOR WRITERS (and people who like quotes)
I think a great book—leaving aside other qualities such as narrative power, characterization, style, and so on—is a book that describes the world in a way that has not been … Continue reading
Don’t expect the puppets of your mind to turn into people on the page…QUOTES FOR WRITERS
Don’t expect the puppets of your mind to become the people of your story. If they are not realities in your own mind, there is no mysterious alchemy in ink … Continue reading
Accept bad writing…Jennifer Egan QUOTES FOR WRITERS(and people who like quotes)
You can only write regularly if you’re willing to write badly… Accept bad writing as a way of priming the pump, a warm-up exercise that allows you to write well … Continue reading
BRIDGET WHELAN writer 