All Quotes By Tag: Creative-process

“Speed is not always a constituent to great work, the process of creation should be given time and thought.”

“Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.”[From the preface.]”

“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.”

“The Scholars”Bald heads forgetful of their sins,Old, learned, respectable bald headsEdit and annotate the linesThat young men, tossing on their beds,Rhymed out in love’s despairTo flatter beauty’s ignorant ear.They’ll cough in the ink to the world’s end;Wear out the carpet with their shoesEarning respect; have no strange friend;If they have sinned nobody knows.Lord, what would they sayShould their Catullus walk that way?”

“Patriarchy doesn’t get yet that ‘hope’ is a powerful force that drives creativity. Otherwise words like ‘false’ and ‘hope’ would never be forced into this unconscious coupling….Hope is not false. And never has been… Rather, hope is part of the often forgotten feminine contribution to the creative process.”

“[T]he success of every novel — if it’s a novel of action — depends on the high spots. The thing to do is to say to yourself, “What are my big scenes?” and then get every drop of juice out of them.”(Interview, The Paris Review, Issue 64, Winter 1975)”

“[O]ne can scarcely be frightened off writing what one wants to write for fear an obscure reviewer should patronise one on that account.”

“An artist without ideas is a mendicant; barren, he goes begging among the hours.”

“The writer must have a good imagination to begin with, but the imagination has to be muscular, which means it must be exercised in a disciplined way, day in and day out, by writing, failing, succeeding and revising.”[The Writer’s Digest Interview: Stephen King & Jerry B. Jenkins (Jessica Strawser, Writer’s Digest, May/June 2009)]”

“The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort towards wholeness.”

“10 Steps to Becoming a Better WriterWrite.Write more.Write even more.Write even more than that.Write when you don’t want to.Write when you do.Write when you have something to say.Write when you don’t.Write every day.Keep writing.”

“Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he’ll eventually make some kind of career for himself as writer.”[1967 interview]”

“In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are essential. God save us from vague generalizations!”(Letter to Alexander Chekhov, May 10, 1886)”

“Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn’t work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they’re done they’re done.”

“Expansion. That is the idea the novelist must cling to. Not completion. Not rounding off, but opening out.”