Hundreds of Characters

"One of the things I had to learn as a writer was to trust the act of writing. To put myself in the position of writing to find out what I was writing."

E. L. Doctorow (via ilivetowriteandinspire)

"

Every writer has heard that old advice: Write what you know.

And most writers realize how bad that advice is.  Who wants to read a book that has nothing in it besides what one writer happens to know?

So, the answer is research.  Lots of it, mountains of it, years of it, a fortune spent on books, and possibly travel.  Maybe some bribes?

Holly Lisle from “How much research does your book need? Really.” (via electro-clarifier)

(Source: dragonwins)

"Possible attitudes found in books. 1) I don’t know what’s happening to me. 2) What does it mean? 3) Seized with the deepest sadness, I know not why. 4) I am lost, my head whirls, I know not where I am. 5) I lose myself. 6) I ask you, what have I come to? 7) I no longer know where I am, what is this country? 8) Had I fallen from the skies, I could not be more giddy. 9) A mixture of pleasure and confusion, that is my state. 10) Where am I, and when will this end? 11) What shall I do? I do not know where I am."

Donald Barthelme (via writingquotes)

(via whoiscalebbouchard)

"Inspiration doesn’t lead to writing. Writing leads to inspiration."

Ellery Akers (via writingquotes)

(via bearhasjams)

"Fantasy doesn’t have to be fantastic. American writers in particular find this much harder to grasp. You need to have your feet on the ground as much as your head in the clouds. The cute dragon that sits on your shoulder also craps all down your back, but this makes it more interesting because it gives it an added dimension."

Terry Pratchett (via writingquotes)

(via fromnycwithlove96)

"A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket."

Charles Peguy (via writingquotes)

(Source: amandaonwriting)

"You either have to write or you shouldn’t be writing. That’s all."

Joss Whedon (via ilivetowriteandinspire)

"We fret about words, we writers. Words mean. Words point. They are arrows. Arrows stuck in the rough hide of reality. And the more portentous, more general the word, the more they can also resemble rooms or tunnels. They can expand, or cave in. They can come to be filled with a bad smell. They will often remind us of other rooms, where we’d rather dwell or where we think we are already living. They can be spaces we lose the art or the wisdom of inhabiting. And eventually those volumes of mental intention we no longer know how to inhabit will be abandoned, boarded up, closed down."

Susan Sontag (via writingquotes)

(via riseofthefirebird)