Komal aspires to be a fiction writer and is well on her journey what with sharing stuff like this - why do writers write. It's a collection of quotes she researched and picked from various sources on the net and it's too wonderful not to share. Komal will make a writer surely because she patiently typed the whole lot for me when I said I would like to share it on my blog. Patience is number one quality. Thanks Komal for sharing and the effort.
All the quotes do not have the names but the thought is good enough.
All the quotes do not have the names but the thought is good enough.
“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear. Why did the oil refineries around Carquinez Straits seem sinister to me in the summer of 1956? Why have the night lights in the bevatron burned in my mind for twenty years? What is going on in these pictures in my mind?” - Joan Didion
“I chose to write because of the experiences I faced growing up in an environment that was very suppressing, oppressing, racial, secretive, etc. There were many lies, secrets and deceit that were a part of my family life as well. I also was dealing with my sexuality and coming out as a gay woman. This was not going over well in an Italian, Catholic Family with a father who was the boss of the Genovese Crime Family in Manhattan. Regardless of who my dad was, I experienced many hurtles that people could relate to and wanted to share my experience with them so as to help them in any way I could.”
“ I have been living inside my imagination since I was a child. I don’t have a long attention span and when I was bored in class, my mind would drift to some world from my imagination – rich with characters and conflict.”
“In general, I love to exercise my imagination when I’m working on my novels. These are worlds that are escapes from my day job!”
“In a way, writing is a tribute to all the authors and works that have fed my imagination — it’s a “giving back” to the creative world for all it’s given me. I once got the following advice, which I think feeds into why many writers do this: Write the book/movie/play you’d want to read/see if you weren’t the creator. That sums up all I’ve ever done.”
“ To leave behind a legacy so that those who did not survive will not be forgotten and those who are facing what appear to be insurmountable obstacles, will have hope. (This answer was kindly provided by Bruce Hurwitz” – Rivka Cohen’s Publisher)
“The best thing about writing fiction is that moment where the story catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes sense and you know what it’s about and why you’re doing it and what these people are saying and doing, and you get to feel like both the creator and the audience. Everything is suddenly both obvious and surprising… and it’s magic and wonderful and strange.”
“Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.”
“My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.”
“I chose to write because of the experiences I faced growing up in an environment that was very suppressing, oppressing, racial, secretive, etc. There were many lies, secrets and deceit that were a part of my family life as well. I also was dealing with my sexuality and coming out as a gay woman. This was not going over well in an Italian, Catholic Family with a father who was the boss of the Genovese Crime Family in Manhattan. Regardless of who my dad was, I experienced many hurtles that people could relate to and wanted to share my experience with them so as to help them in any way I could.”
“ I have been living inside my imagination since I was a child. I don’t have a long attention span and when I was bored in class, my mind would drift to some world from my imagination – rich with characters and conflict.”
“In general, I love to exercise my imagination when I’m working on my novels. These are worlds that are escapes from my day job!”
“In a way, writing is a tribute to all the authors and works that have fed my imagination — it’s a “giving back” to the creative world for all it’s given me. I once got the following advice, which I think feeds into why many writers do this: Write the book/movie/play you’d want to read/see if you weren’t the creator. That sums up all I’ve ever done.”
“ To leave behind a legacy so that those who did not survive will not be forgotten and those who are facing what appear to be insurmountable obstacles, will have hope. (This answer was kindly provided by Bruce Hurwitz” – Rivka Cohen’s Publisher)
“The best thing about writing fiction is that moment where the story catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes sense and you know what it’s about and why you’re doing it and what these people are saying and doing, and you get to feel like both the creator and the audience. Everything is suddenly both obvious and surprising… and it’s magic and wonderful and strange.”
“Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.”
“My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.”
On her website, Judy Blume shares a number of tips and personal stories with would-be authors seeking advice and a starting point. “Those of us who write do it because there are stories inside us burning to get out. Writing is essential to our well-being,” she shares. It’s a sentiment that many of the authors on our list have explained, but a PBS interview with the Are You There, God? It’s Me Margaret writer describes something more revealing and equally, beautifully honest. She told the network about her struggle searching for books she could identify with as a child — ” families like my family,” she explains, “Which wasn’t perfect; it was a loving family, but it wasn’t perfect. And I knew, you know, there were secrets within families.” Blume “wanted to write what [she] remembered to be true,” especially since she admits that the “voice in [her] head was the voice of a child.”
“I write to dream; to connect with other human beings; to record; to clarify; to visit the dead. I have a kind of primitive need to leave a mark on the world. Also, I have a need for money.”
“I’m almost always anxious when I’m writing. There are those great moments when you forget where you are, when you get your hands on the keys, and you don’t feel anything because you’re somewhere else. But that very rarely happens. Mostly I’m pounding my hands on the corpse’s chest.”
“I start all my books on January eighth. Can you imagine January seventh? It’s hell. Every year on January seventh, I prepare my physical space. I clean up everything from my other books. I just leave my dictionaries, and my first editions, and the research materials for the new one. And then on January eight I walk seventeen steps from the kitchen to the little pool house that is my office. It’s like a journey to another world. It’s winter, it’s raining usually. I go with my umbrella and the dog following me. From those seventeen steps on, I am in another world and i am another person. I go there scared. And excited. And disappointed – because I have a sort of idea that isn’t really an idea. The first two, three, four weeks are wasted. I just show up in front of the computer. Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too. If she doesn’t show up invited, eventually she just shows up.”
“Why do writers write? We write because it pushes us beyond the barriers of everyday existence into a world of what might be. A world of opportunity. An infinite variety of maybes and what ifs. A vast plain of words that might help describe the world in which we live.”
“For a writer, no two days are the same. The path may not always be smooth and predictable, but there are always new sights to see. There is always more to explore.”
“ Like any great journey, writing is full of its ups and downs. Sometimes, it feels like riding a roller coaster; other times, it’s like riding a donkey. We can be taken from Byzantine riches to Ethiopian droughts — from good to bad and dark to light — in the flash of a feature or the length of a short story. There’s no comfort in a thrilling story, and the same is true for a writer’s life. It is an isolated — but far from lonely — experience. With our words and fellow “travelers” to keep us company, adventure lurks around every corner.”
“There’s a lot more to the writing life than what we earn — or don’t earn. After all, it’s not our possessions or paychecks that make for a fulfilled life. It’s those moments we choose to step into discomfort that our stories begin to be interesting.”
“A trip to the Australian Outback taught me that being away from your routine and placing yourself in a strange environment is challenging. Each moment is full of excitement and anticipation about what could happen next. It’s not about the destination; it’s about the journey. Just like writing. Just like life.”
“I write to dream; to connect with other human beings; to record; to clarify; to visit the dead. I have a kind of primitive need to leave a mark on the world. Also, I have a need for money.”
“I’m almost always anxious when I’m writing. There are those great moments when you forget where you are, when you get your hands on the keys, and you don’t feel anything because you’re somewhere else. But that very rarely happens. Mostly I’m pounding my hands on the corpse’s chest.”
“I start all my books on January eighth. Can you imagine January seventh? It’s hell. Every year on January seventh, I prepare my physical space. I clean up everything from my other books. I just leave my dictionaries, and my first editions, and the research materials for the new one. And then on January eight I walk seventeen steps from the kitchen to the little pool house that is my office. It’s like a journey to another world. It’s winter, it’s raining usually. I go with my umbrella and the dog following me. From those seventeen steps on, I am in another world and i am another person. I go there scared. And excited. And disappointed – because I have a sort of idea that isn’t really an idea. The first two, three, four weeks are wasted. I just show up in front of the computer. Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too. If she doesn’t show up invited, eventually she just shows up.”
“Why do writers write? We write because it pushes us beyond the barriers of everyday existence into a world of what might be. A world of opportunity. An infinite variety of maybes and what ifs. A vast plain of words that might help describe the world in which we live.”
“For a writer, no two days are the same. The path may not always be smooth and predictable, but there are always new sights to see. There is always more to explore.”
“ Like any great journey, writing is full of its ups and downs. Sometimes, it feels like riding a roller coaster; other times, it’s like riding a donkey. We can be taken from Byzantine riches to Ethiopian droughts — from good to bad and dark to light — in the flash of a feature or the length of a short story. There’s no comfort in a thrilling story, and the same is true for a writer’s life. It is an isolated — but far from lonely — experience. With our words and fellow “travelers” to keep us company, adventure lurks around every corner.”
“There’s a lot more to the writing life than what we earn — or don’t earn. After all, it’s not our possessions or paychecks that make for a fulfilled life. It’s those moments we choose to step into discomfort that our stories begin to be interesting.”
“A trip to the Australian Outback taught me that being away from your routine and placing yourself in a strange environment is challenging. Each moment is full of excitement and anticipation about what could happen next. It’s not about the destination; it’s about the journey. Just like writing. Just like life.”
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