Your writing experience is not the same as anyone else's. What another writer does to tell their story will not be your way. Do what is best to write your story and do it to the best of your ability. That means be true to your story & responsible to your readers.
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Quotes tagged ‘Writing Advice’
The first yes, though, is the one you tell yourself. That one’s huge. It’s when you say, I will do this anyway. I will do it because it matters to me to make this attempt at the summit. You will not be perfect. No one is perfect. It will be hard. Everything is hard.
You can do it. You can be completely daunted and scared, and still, if you do the work to learn how to write, and do the work of writing, you can make stories people will read. You can change myths people think they’ve committed to memory. You can rock this place.
No one else’s standards of most apply. Do the things YOU imagine. Don’t try to make yourself into someone else’s version of a How To Be A Writer. Be the writer you are, & reach for the most amazing work you can do.
Don’t worry about pleasing others. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else. Be the writer you wanted to read but never found. Develop a strong core that you can return to again and again, something that isn’t predicated on external validation.
There is no right way to write. The only thing that works is whatever works for you.
Read as a writer! Read to understand HOW an author created conflict, heightened your emotional response, created a turn in the text. Read like a surgeon. Read like a locksmith. Read like an ethical, non-plagiarizing but absorptive thief.
The fear of not being successful outweighed any fears I had about my writing ability.
You gotta write so many bad poems in order to get to the good ones.
Also, 50 isn't old. 60 isn't old. THERE IS NO EXPIRATION DATE WITH WRITING. Literally, you can do this job until the day you die. So why are people fixating on getting it done before 30? Who started this myth that you have to?
Tell her to read whatever interests her & protect her if someone declares what she's reading to be trash. No one can fathom what happens between a human being & written language.
A good writer, like a good reader, has a mind's ear...writers need to hear as they write.
Hi a writing thing I've been finding really helpful lately is I outline and organize and elaborate on all my points in my notes app so it feels super casual, then when you copy that over to your Actual Writing Program, you see you've already written so much!! Boom! No more blank page. The cool thing…
A lot of aspiring writers ask me about how much they should be writing per day. The answer, of course, is about half as much as you spend rolling on the floor and sobbing.
If you're having trouble writing fight scenes, I wholeheartedly recommend watching any Jackie Chan movie. Study not only how the choreography keeps things moving across a screen, but also how much emotion he conveys in a fight.
Writing a plot is super easy. First, think of a character. Then, think of what they want. Then, spend 600-odd pages keeping them from getting it.
Ideally, every event in a book should serve a purpose. But it’s totally fine to write a scene because you want to and figure out its purpose later.
The terrifying truth of the writing life: however many words you wrote last week, you still have to write a load this week.
Worldbuilding works when it's used to facilitate imagination. It doesn't work when it's used to stifle it. The goal is to make it seem like the world is alive and exists with or without you. When it's used as a gate to insist that certain things couldn't happen, then it no longer serves a purpose fo…
I think our job is to trust our readers. I think our job is to see and to let ourselves be seen. I think our job is to love the world.