This was supposed to be yesterday. I was sitting on the Cardiff/London train, supposedly about to write this very column, and realising something quite terrible. My head was entirely empty. A vast echoing void. Bigger on the inside, but with nothing in it. You could drop a pebble in my brain and wait for an hour to hear it land. No actually, you couldn’t – that would be aggressive and unhelpful, so keep your damn pebbles to yourself.
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Steven Moffat
write
At that moment, the urge to be writing was stronger than any notion she had of what she might write. – Ian McEwan,
At that moment, the urge to be writing was stronger than any notion she had of what she might write.
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Ian McEwan,
Atonement
I have grown weary of literature: silence alone comforts me. If I continue to write, it s because I have nothing more to accomplish in this
I have grown weary of literature: silence alone comforts me. If I continue to write, it s because I have nothing more to accomplish in this world except to wait for death. Searching for the word in darkness. Any little success invades me and puts me in full view of everyone. I long to wallow in the mud. I can scarcely control my need for self-abasement, my craving for licentiousness and debauchery. Sin tempts me, forbidden pleasures lure me. I want to be both pig and hen, then kill them and drink their blood.
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Clarice Lispector
I’m not a big fan of inspiration. I’m too old to sit and wait for the muse to give me a little kiss… I write a lot, and I’m not afraid to
I’m not a big fan of inspiration. I’m too old to sit and wait for the muse to give me a little kiss… I write a lot, and I’m not afraid to make mistakes or to write badly. I can alsways fix something weak and dull. But I can’t fix a blank page.
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Ron Koertge
When you write your first novel you don’t really know what you’re doing. There may be writers out there who are brilliant, incisive and in
When you write your first novel you don’t really know what you’re doing. There may be writers out there who are brilliant, incisive and in control from their first ‘Once upon a time’. I’m not one of them. Every once upon a time for me is another experience of white-water rafting in a leaky inner tube. And I have this theory that while the Story Council has its faults, it does have some idea that if books are going to get written, authors have to be able to write them.
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Robin McKinley
What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat, …. And it might be just the most
What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat, …. And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I m writing, I write. And then it s as if the muse is convinced that I m serious and says, Okay. Okay. I ll come.
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Maya Angelou
The secret is not to write about what you love best, but about what you, alone, love at all. – Annie
The secret is not to write about what you love best, but about what you, alone, love at all.
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Annie Dillard
To write simply is as difficult as to be good. – W. Somerset
To write simply is as difficult as to be good.
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W. Somerset Maugham
Write all the time. I believe in writing every day, at least a thousand words a day. We have a strange idea about writing: that it can be
Write all the time. I believe in writing every day, at least a thousand words a day. We have a strange idea about writing: that it can be done, and done well, without a great deal of effort. Dancers practice every day, musicians practice every day, even when they are at the peak of their careers especially then. Somehow, we don t take writing as seriously. But writing writing wonderfully takes just as much dedication.
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Theodora Goss
If you write in the Old World, and against it, your work must die, go missing, be veiled, before it can live the life for which it was
If you write in the Old World, and against it, your work must die, go missing, be veiled, before it can live the life for which it was destined in the New World.
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Patrick Nowell-Smith
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