Writers On Writers Block Quotes

#1. Writers block to me is all the voices in your head trying to tune out the one voice that has something worthy say.

Shanet Outing

#2. I had to educate him that there was no such thing as writer's block, that writers write when they write, and when they don't, they don't.

Anthony Kiedis

#3. 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

#4. There is no writers' block, it is just a gitch, a gtch, a tch, shhh. Glitch.

Jordano Quaglia

#5. I think every writer struggles in some way with writers block. The trick is to plan out what you are going to say beforehand. I found out that if you make an outline you're much less likely to get blocked when you get into the middle of the story.

Rick Riordan

#6. To get over artist's block, make shitty art.

Dave Horowitz

#7. If she was going to write a novel, she felt defeated before she began, because someone might be coming along to pick it apart, looking for symbols like The Conch or The Whale, which seemed to have mythic proportions.

L.L. Barkat

#8. Don't let writers block push you around. Figure out what the problem is,whether it's with the ms or it's in your personal life, and face it head on. Don't stop writing. Just try really hard to work through it.

Darynda Jones

#9. A tweet a day keeps writer's block away.

Buffy Andrews

#10. To unlock the writer's block is to keep writing until you can unknot the "not". If you cannot, then put a can in the plot and unwrap it a lot!

Ana Claudia Antunes

#11. Stop waiting for creative inspiration. Start creating and inspire yourself along the way.

Ryan Lilly

#12. Why do I keep evading my work? Is it because I'm afraid of being confronted by my lack of abilities?

Candace Bushnell

#13. The short story, I should point out, is perforce a labor of love in today's literary world; there's precious little economic incentive to write one ...

Lawrence Block

#14. The very qualities that make one a writer in the first place contribute to the block: hypersensitivity, stubbornness, insatiability, and so on. Given the general oddity of writers, no wonder there are no sure cures.

John Gardner

#15. In the end, I am quite normal. I don't have odd habits. I don't dramatize. Above all, I do not romanticize the act of writing. I don't talk about the anguish I suffer in creating. I do not have a fear of the blank page, writer's block, all those things that we hear about writers.

Jose Saramago

#16. If you want to know why all writers are a little crazy read 'The Midnight Disease' by Alice W. Flaherty. She talks about the drive to write, writer's block, and the creative brain. I know what's wrong with me!

Dorothea Benton Frank

#17. Writer's block: when your imaginary friends stop talking to you.

Anonymous

#18. Each time I write, I reaffirm my soul.

Rob Bignell, Editor

#19. There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.

William Stafford

#20. If you've got writer's block, you aren't empty - maybe it's just like Twitter - overwhelmed, and loading seems to be taking a while ...

John Geddes

#21. No one stopped me from playing when I was alone, but there were times when I wasn't able to, though I wanted to ... There were times when nothing played back. Writers call it 'writer's block.' For kids there are other names for that feeling, though kids don't usually know them.

Lynda Barry

#22. I don't believe in "writers block." Lower your standards and keep writing. You can always go back later and make it better. Unless your name is Harlan Ellison, in which case your sentences come out perfectly parsed each time.

Marvin J. Wolf

#23. I'm not the new kid on the block anymore. Writers always use the phrase "aging rocker," and I'm like, "What other option do I have?" You're either aging or you're dead.

Bret Michaels

#24. The best cure for cranial constipation is emotional fiber. Feel 'something', anything.
Pain, anger, joy; if your heart goes eerily cold or leaps erratically from your chest, your synaptic bowels will soon find release.

Muse

#25. I only get writer's block about once a day.

Sue Grafton

#26. It's often said that writers sometimes need to go around the block a few times to get where they're going.

Christopher Bram

#27. Having writers block sucks more than my actual writing. And my writing would be astonishing if I could write how I feel.

Ally Spina

#28. I spend days with writers' block. It is a problem.

Mackenzie Crook

#29. Writing is like riding a bike. Once you gain momentum, the hills are easier. Editing, however, requires a motor and some horsepower.

Gina McKnight

#30. Don't be afraid to be the new kid on the block. Pay attention and respect the more seasoned writers around you, but when you are ready to jump into the fire just remember to wear fire- retardant pajamas.

L.A. Lewandowski

#31. Putting pen to paper without first deciding the route and pace at which to scribe is like setting off on a bicycle without first checking the tyres.

Fennel Hudson

#32. The trouble with a baby, for writists, is that they take away your useful melancholy, even the energy to invent some.

D.A. Botta

#33. Time heals all wounds; some broken hearts
and most cases of writer's block.

Quentin R. Bufogle

#34. A hammer made of deadlines is the surest tool for crushing writer's block.

Ryan Lilly

#35. I wrote my first book when I was 22 years old. I have a way with words and I love to write. I can write without getting writers block so I knew, it was a gift.

Tony Gaskins

#36. You don't have to take it out on my typewrite ya' know. It's not the machine's fault that you can't write. It's a sin to do that to a good machine.

Sam Shepard

#37. A writer is always writing for someone.

L.L. Barkat

#38. Failing to writer everyday doesn't mean that you've given up, though a chapter a day - keeps writers block away!

David Batterson

#39. Every word I write is another stroke that takes me to the shore of a completed book.

Rob Bignell, Editor

#40. They told me I've got writer's cramp. So is that better than the block?

Joyce Rachelle

#41. Considering I'm a writer, you leave me strangely bereft of words.

Kelly Moran

#42. Every word I write is a seed that I may nurture into a small, beautiful poem or a tall, soaring tree.

Rob Bignell, Editor

#43. She meant you have to live a story for a time.'
'And?'
'And then you can write it, in time. What have you lived?'
'Kind of a personal question for Twitterland.'
'Kind of the perfect question to answer in fiction.

L.L. Barkat

#44. When words don't come easy, I make do with silence and find something in nothing." ~ Strider Marcus Jones, Poet

Strider Marcus Jones

#45. Make a list of all the varieties of aliens you can come up with. (And if it's less than 3,000, then THE PEARS ARE LAUGHING AT YOU, MY FRIEND.) -Scott Westerfeld from NaNoWriMo Pep Talk.

Scott Westerfeld

#46. I don't get writers block. I get writer has too many ideas and doesn't know which one to start next, block.

Tyler Hojberg

#47. Writing something new is an effective way to get rid of writer's block. Or you can observe the people around you and fantasize like I do.

B.A. Gabrielle

#48. I'm a little harsh. When people say, 'I have writers block. What do you suggest?' I say, 'If you can't write, don't write. No one needs your writing. Don't torture yourself.'

Lorrie Moore

#49. The muse is fickle; ergo, when she knocks, ANSWER! It may take a while, but trust me, she WILL knock. In the meantime, keep your ear pressed firmly to the door.

Quentin R. Bufogle

#50. Professional writers don't have muses; they have mortgages.

Larry Kahaner

#51. Very often we write down a sentence too early, then another too late; what we have to do is write it down at the proper time, otherwise it's lost.

Thomas Bernhard

#52. The last thing we discover in composing a work is what to put down first.

Blaise Pascal

#53. Writers have two main problems. One is writer's block, when words won't come at all, and the other is Logorrhoea, when the words come so fast that they can hardly get to the wastebasket in time.

Cecilia Bartholomew

#54. Writers are troubled about finding time to write and writer's block and publicizing books that aren't books yet. They agonize over how to write and what to write and what not to write.

Deb Caletti

#55. If you're a writer, the insight of other writers - if there's some kind of Holy Grail message on how to deal with writer's block or how to deal with any problem that can come up - whether you're writing about yourself or a group of people, I find that very interesting.

Jim Rash

#56. Over analysis leads to paralysis

Rebecca Jane

#57. Writer's block' is just a fancy way of saying 'I don't feel like doing any work today.

Meagan Spooner

#58. Don't waste time waiting for inspiration. Begin, and inspiration will find you.

H. Jackson Brown Jr.

#59. Writing about a writer's block is better than not writing at all

Charles Bukowski

#60. I haven't written in a week. It's like holding your breath under water. You feel an awful constriction and then the instinct to propel yourself.

D.A. Botta

#61. I write whenever it suits me. During a creative period I write every day; a novel should not be interrupted.

Francois Mauriac

#62. Confront the page that taunts you with its whiteness. Face your enemy and fill it with words. You are bigger and stronger than a piece of paper.

Fennel Hudson

#63. What is hell to a writer? Hell is being too busy to find the time to write or being unable to find the inspiration. Hell is suddenly finding the words but being away from your notebook or typewriter. Hell is when the verses slip away through your fingers and they never return again.

R.M. Engelhardt

#64. My ideas are a shapeless mass that my writing molds into beauty.

Rob Bignell, Editor

#65. For short term relaxation, I take a hot tub. It's my best way to unblock writers' block, too. For a bit longer relaxation, I enjoy camping. Just being in the wilderness, with no phones or computers or anything I have to do really refreshes my spirit.

Ellen Hopkins

#66. I don't believe in writers' block. Do doctors have 'doctors block?' Do plumbers have 'plumbers' block?" No. We all have days when we don't feel like working, but why do writers turn that into something so damn special by giving it a faintly romantic name.

Larry Kahaner

#67. The music lets me see the story but the story doesn't let me write the words.

Elizabeth J. Kolodziej

#68. Yes, I felt very small. The typewriter seemed larger than a piano, I was less than a molecule. What could I do? I drank more.
-pg 237

Albert Sanchez Pinol

#69. Writer's block is just another name for fear.

Jacob Nordby

#70. All writing problems are psychological problems. Blocks usually stem from the fear of being judged. If you imagine the world listening, you'll never write a line. That's why privacy is so important. You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone.

Erica Jong

#71. I have found repeatedly hitting my head with a mallet doesn't help at all, so i am open to suggestions.

Steve Merrick

#72. Writing isn't difficult. Writing well is difficult. What is most difficult is being with the interior experience that manifests as resistance to writing.

H. Raven Rose

#73. Writing is a sickness only cured by writing.

Niall Williams

#74. If only my sunscreen was as good as my writers block!

Martin Link

#75. Writer's block is caused by forcing your will on the Divine.

Chriscinthia Blount

#76. Writing is hard. That's why so few people stick to it and actually finish things. And why you have a right to be immensely proud when you finish something.
[There Is No Such Thing as Writers' Block: Blog post, October 7, 2001]

Andy Ihnatko

#77. The thing I want to write most is the next thing I write.

Carroll Bryant

#78. Through the act of writing, a writer learns more about himself than he could ever imagine.

Rob Bignell, Editor

#79. I might have missed my calling as an editor. In the spring, the sight of my empty garden beds gives me the horticultural equivalent of writers' block: So much space! So many plants to choose among, and yet none of them seem quite right!

Susan Orlean

#80. There is always, always, always something to write about.

Rob Bignell, Editor

#81. To be motivated to write a novel, I need to be unable not to write.

Johnny Rich

#82. Replace your old books with the books you've always wanted to write.

Rob Bignell, Editor