Quotes About The Process Of Writing

#1. I enjoy the process of writing. The torment comes in getting my bottom on the chair and in front of the typewriter.

Caryl Rivers

#2. I always dread the process of writing because I'm not a writer. I'm an audible guy, I'm a verbal guy. I love to talk. I write a book every couple years, but it just takes everything out of me to get a book out.

T.C. Boyle

#3. I love stand-up, but the process of writing is a little more lonely. I want to keep doing both, though.

Jack Whitehall

#4. I loved the process of writing.

Nora Roberts

#5. The process of writing a book is so removed in my mind from the process of publishing it that I often forget for great stretches that I eventually hope to do the latter.

Karen Joy Fowler

#6. One poem or story doesn't matter one way or the other. It's the process of writing and life that matters.

Natalie Goldberg

#7. I write every day. I'm always in the process of writing my last book, until the next one.

Farley Mowat

#8. Give yourself the mental freedom to enjoy the process, because the process of writing is a long one.

Tara Moss

#9. I would love to produce a film. I have written a script and am in the process of writing another, so maybe it will happen down the road. I would love to do a film in Africa.

Judi Shekoni

#10. The process of writing a novel begins with a pang, a moment of recognition, and a situation, a character, or something you read in a paper, that seems to go off, like a solar flare inside your head.

Martin Amis

#11. I like the process of writing songs. It makes me feel good.

Colin Hay

#12. The process of writing a poem represents work done on the self of the poet, in order to make form.

Muriel Rukeyser

#13. I see the author as the person who has written; the writer, the one involved in the process of writing. And they're not necessarily friends. The writer is the one I want to reinforce; the author would just feed on the reviews - so I'm in favour of starving him.

Edward St. Aubyn

#14. For the writer, the process of writing a novel is like getting an advanced copy of a book you'd really like to read.

Brett Armstrong

#15. Usually form seems to find me in the process of writing a poem, though I have nothing against starting out with the form.

Matthea Harvey

#16. The process of writing a story isn't about fair. It's about getting to the heart of your story, getting to the truth of it. It transcends ideals of fair and unfair, right and wrong.

Lynn Coady

#17. Now, the process of writing poetry is very messy. Not systematic, never quite the same

Edward Hirsch

#18. The real importance of reading is that it creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing; one comes to the country of the writer with one's papers and identification pretty much in order.

Stephen King

#19. I'm not a fast writer, and I find the process of writing a first draft to be painful and frustrating. Usually, I start with a character, a premise, and some image that gives me a particular feeling.

Holly Black

#20. The process of writing has something infinite about it. Even though it is interrupted each night, it is one single notation, and it seems most true when it eschews artistic devices of any sort.

Elias Canetti

#21. The process of writing and directing drives you to such extremes that it's natural to feel an affinity with insanity. I approach that madness as something dangerous, and I'm afraid, but also I want to go to it, to see what's there, to embrace it. I don't know why, but I'm drawn.

Dario Argento

#22. For a country is not merely a piece of earth; it is, above all, a compendium of social, cultural, and historical factors which begin to acquire sense and order through the process of writing.

Juan Goytisolo

#23. A book of mine is always a matter of fate. There is something unpredictable about the process of writing, and I cannot prescribe for myself any predetermined course.

Carl Jung

#24. I don't enjoy any of the process of writing. I enjoy it when it goes on if it zings and it has great warmth and import and it's successful.

Rod Serling

#25. The process of writing is a process of learning; and much has become clearer to me in the attempt to transform my original rough notes into what I hope is an intelligible presentation.

Paul A. Baran

#26. There's nothing wrong with delighting in what you do. In fact, most of the fun you'll have as a poet will come about during the process of writing.

Ted Kooser

#27. A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason.

Margaret Atwood

#28. I enjoy the process of writing collaboration so there's some stuff that already that may happen and then some stuff that I'm initiating that I may write on my own.

Oren Moverman

#29. In writing, one searches, and that is what keeps one writing, that one sees and experiences things from another angle entirely; one experiences oneself during the process of writing.

Herta Muller

#30. The process of writing has always started for me when I put myself in a place where no one distracts me.

Joyce Maynard

#31. I don't think the process of writing books is in any way sensible. It's not logical, and it's not reasonable. I do write very fast, and I just do it in a binge. Other people binge-drink; I binge-write.

Kerry Greenwood

#32. For me, the process of writing a novel happens mostly in your head before you actually start writing.

Dan Chaon

#33. Right now we're in the process of writing new material for a new record.

Dave Lombardo

#34. It is my contention that the process of reading is part of the process of writing, the necessary completion without which writing can hardly be said to exist.

Margaret Atwood

#35. Actually, I enjoy the process of writing a big long novel.

Donna Tartt

#36. I don't want to blame anybody, but I just want to tell you that the process of writing is antisocial, so on the days that you have something really important to write, go from lying down directly to your notepad or your computer. Do not talk.

Sandra Cisneros

#37. I think that in the process of writing, all kinds of unexpected things happen that shift the poet away from his plan and that these accidents are really what we mean when we talk about poetry.

John Ashbery

#38. I tend to like order in almost every other aspect of my life, but for me, the process of writing is really chaotic and decadent and indulgent.

Dan Chaon

#39. I never have particular actors planned when I'm in the process of writing.

Susanne Bier

#40. Especially when writers are just starting out, the emphasis should be not only upon what they write, but equally upon the process of writing. A successful class is a class where no one feels that 'writer's block' is a high-priority subject.

Mary Oliver

#41. The process of writing, any form of creativity, is a power intensifying life.

Rita Mae Brown

#42. Yes, it was. The process of writing was important. Even though the finished product is meaningless.

Haruki Murakami

#43. I have two ideas for novels at the moment, neither of them all that conventional, but I'm not ready to choose between them yet, let alone settle down to the process of writing.

Jonathan Coe

#44. The conclusion I came to was that even if I couldn't sell books, I still liked the process of writing.

Paolo Bacigalupi

#45. You can then further enhance the process of writing by forming the clear intention that your Higher Self will influence your writing.

Genevieve Gerard

#46. The process of writing a book is like the process of preparing a dinner. Serving dishes, choosing ingredients and so on.

Brian Tracy

#47. It's hard work, writing, you know. Honestly, a fight every day against your own limitations. You have to squeeze books out of your brain, you're constantly trying to solve challenges. I think most writers enjoy the feeling of having written something, rather than the process of writing it.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

#48. I think we're always in the process of writing and rewriting the story of our lives, forming our experiences into a narrative that makes sense. Much of that work involves demythologizing family myths and cultural myths - getting free of what we have been told about ourselves.

Sam Keen

#49. To me, the process of writing is just reading what I've written and - like running your hand over one of those mod glass stovetops to find where the heat is - looking for where the energy is in the prose, then going in the direction of that. It's an exercise in being open to whatever is there.

George Saunders

#50. After so many books and so many years of writing, I have a good idea of my strengths and weaknesses. I love the process of writing and, if I allowed myself, I would write far too much every day. One weakness which I've struggled to overcome is my tendency to having my characters ruminate for pages.

Walter Dean Myers

#51. I have two young children, and I will say that motherhood is its own peak, just like in the process of writing: one climbs and is continuously moving with each book. Becoming a mother is the greatest connection I've ever felt to being spiritual.

Jhumpa Lahiri

#52. I've realized that with each novel I seem to set out a kind of puzzle for myself. And I am never sure in the process of writing a first draft how it's all going to turn out.

Laurie Foos

#53. Thank God for being a writer, because you do sort of find out what you think by the process of writing.

Robyn Davidson

#54. I've discovered as an author that the process of writing a novel becomes harder over time, not easier. I used to think the reverse must be true, that it would be like any task, and the more I practiced, the more adept I'd become.

Tawni O'Dell

#55. Stories heal us because we become whole through them. In the process of writing, of discovering our story, we restore those parts of ourselves that have been scattered, hidden, suppressed, denied, distorted, forbidden, and we come to understand that stories heal.

Deena Metzger

#56. You don't realise how much you're holding onto until you start to let go of it. I had had loads of therapy and thought I had come to terms with who I am, but there's something in the process of writing that unlocks other experiences, other emotions and you have to be prepared for that.

Damian Barr

#57. The process of writing 'The Innovator's Dilemma' entailed the developing a new theory. My colleagues, students and I have been improving that theory, and adding others to it, since that time.

Clayton Christensen

#58. And my experience is the best titles, for me, emerge in the process of writing. They don't usually come at the very beginning and hopefully they don't come at the very end because then it's getting late in the day.

Edward Hirsch

#59. Fiction does not spring into the world fully grown, like Athena. It is the process of writing and rewriting that makes a fiction original, if not profound.

John Gardner

#60. I've written a lot of books now; I've been published for over 30 years. I hope with every book I learn something new, and with every new novel I try to improve the process of writing.

Charlaine Harris

#61. The process of writing a book has given me a whole new reverence for writers. Mechanically, it is a brutal process; emotionally, it's incredibly healing.

Cory Booker

#62. The process of writing is a little like madness, a kind of possession not altogether benign.

Joanne Harris

#63. Writing things was important, wasn't it? Nakata asked.
'Yes, it was. The process of writing was important. Even though the finished product is completely meaningless.

Haruki Murakami

#64. If you want to be a writer, you must be in love with the process of writing, whether you achieve financial success or not.

Cinda Williams Chima

#65. The process of writing a novel is getting to know more about the novel until you know everything about it. And it's been described as a kind of dreamlike state where you're letting the novel make its own shape, and you're putting into it the pleasure of creation, which is intoxicating.

Martin Amis

#66. It's the process of writing and life that matters.Too many writers have written great books and gone insane or alcoholic or killed themselves. This process teaches about sanity. We are trying to become sane along with our poems and stories.

Natalie Goldberg

#67. There is so much about the process of writing that is mysterious to me, but this one thing I've found to be true: writing begets writing.

Dorianne Laux

#68. It is a wonderful thing in the process of writing when such paper characters are first sketched, and, when one is doing good work, from a certain point in time they come alive and start contradicting the author as well.

Gunter Grass

#69. Organic growth is a cyclical process; it is just as true to say that the oak is a potential acorn as it is to say the acorn is a potential oak. But the process of writing a poem, of making any art object, is not cyclical but a motion in one direction toward a definite end.

W. H. Auden

#70. Whether it is done quickly or slowly, however splendid the results, the process of writing fiction is inherently, inevitably, indistinguishable from wasting time.

Deborah Eisenberg

#71. Thinking about writing isn't writing. Planning to write isn't writing. Neither is talking about it, posting about it, or complaining how hard it is. These may be part of the process. But only writing is writing.

Jack Ketchum

#72. I devote most of my day to writing, and try to turn out at least four pages a day. As for what triggers the creative process, it's a mystery to me! Characters often just walk on the page, and I wait to see what they do and say while I'm writing them.

Tess Gerritsen

#73. If you're writing a screenplay for a feature, you don't have any involvement with the casting process, the editing process, the set design, the costume design, or any of that stuff.

David Benioff

#74. This isn't a religious book though I mention God, not a medical advisory though I speak of pain. It's a circus, a mortuary, a grade school, a limousine ride. Will it be worth the paper it's printed on or the screen you hold in your hand? I just hope you remember it next week.

Chila Woychik

#75. Having read several prize-winning novels, Fancy was confident that she now knew the recipe:
1. Write a simple narrative.
2. Make a long list.
3. Scatter the contents of your list throughout your narrative.

Jaclyn Moriarty

#76. The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort towards wholeness.

Madeleine L'Engle

#77. Writing one's first novel, getting it sold, and shepherding it through the labyrinths of editing, production, marketing, journalism, and social media is an arduous and nerve-wracking process.

Paul Di Filippo

#78. Art is the overflow of emotion into action.

Brian Raif

#79. The challenge of the writer is to transform - artistically and imaginatively - a unique personal experience into a universal, meaningful story.

Hillel F. Damron

#80. The writer is one who, embarking upon a task, does not know what to do ... Writing is a process of dealing with not-knowing, a forcing of what and how.

Donald Barthelme

#81. Set fire to cities and nations, to hearts and minds, to the very core of every human spirit. Make sure your words seep into the skin of the reader, leaving trace minerals that sustain the ailing human shell. Make them pay attention. Set fire to the soul. Anything less is an abomination to creation.

Susan Marie

#82. Writers are always alone, even in a room bursting with noises of the familiar.

Rachel Thompson

#83. Attempting to express a person's objective reality and subjective state of mind with the written word is an endless task because writing alters our perception of reality and amends our mental equilibrium.

Kilroy J. Oldster

#84. I gradually realized that I was seeing another example of creative ebb, another step by another art on the road that may indeed end in extinction.

Stephen King

#85. My stories take three or four months to fix, and it's not magical of a process. Ultimately it's a boring, difficult process. I write everything out, and then the parts I think are funny I put in bold. Then I go perform it. Then the parts that aren't funny, I unbold them.

Kumail Nanjiani

#86. More and more I don't have any philosophy about writing, except that it is something we can do if God is good to us. Of course we are the ones who have to do the paperwork.

M.V. Carey

#87. Thinking is creating with God, as thinking is writing with the ready writer; and worlds are only leaves turned over in the process of composition, about his throne.

Henry Ward Beecher

#88. If there was anything that I learned with my own writing process, maybe there's too many choices what to write about. Just the amount of subject matter in the world these days; maybe that feels chaotic for me.

Eddie Vedder

#89. Most people assume I write at night because of the kind of books I write, but I can shut out the light with my mind.

Carla H. Krueger

#90. To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant - inexcusably ignorant, in a world where three out of four people have learned to read and write.

Daniel Dennett

#91. The whole process of writing a novel is having this great, beautiful idea and then spoiling it.

Diane Johnson

#92. The Internet is a limitless library at your fingertips. It's a great place to start with the acquisition of knowledge. My process is to go to a place when I'm writing about it. Nothing captures the essence, feeling and flavor of a place better than when I'm actually there and doing the writing.

Barry Eisler

#93. Writing is the act of finding out what I think.

Stephen King

#94. Poetry is a solitary process. One does not write poetry for the masses. Poetry is a self-involved, lofty pursuit. Songs are for the people. When I'm writing a song, I imagine performing it. I imagine giving it. It's a different aspect of communication. It's for the people.

Patti Smith

#95. My writing process hasn't changed - it's is the same whether I'm working on a Y.A. novel or, as now, a new novel for adults. A lot of reading, a lot of research if the subject warrants it, a lot of sticky notes and scraps of paper - and get to work.

Kathe Koja

#96. In the last analysis, most of our difficulties come from losing contact with our instincts, with the age-old forgotten wisdom stored up in us.

C. G. Jung

#97. I really enjoy the writing process because I can do it from my house. I can create these characters and take them in the different directions that I want to take them. You have a lot of freedom as a writer.

Ricky Schroder

#98. I'm widest awake as a writer doing something new, engaged in a process I'm not sure I can finish, generating at the edge of my powers. Some people bungee jump; I write.

Barbara Kingsolver

#99. I'm very keen. Adaptations of other people's work, too. I got fascinated by the adaptation process, so I think that'd be a really interesting task. I would happily write original screenplays as well. I think it's become one of my favorite genres.

Emma Donoghue

#100. I don't usually think of my writing as a 'challenge' because I enjoy the process so much. I suppose that's what's helped me to avoid 'writer's block' all these years.

Melody Carlson