TIPS FOR
EMERGING AUTHORS
G'day folks,
I may have posted these before but they are worth re-reading.
“Advice
to young writers who want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don’t write
about Man, write about a man.” ― E.B. White
“Write. Start writing today. Start writing
right now. Don’t write it right, just write it –and then make it right later.
Give yourself the mental freedom to enjoy the process, because the process of
writing is a long one. Be wary of “writing rules” and advice. Do it your
way.” ― Tara
Moss
“Notice how many of the Olympic athletes
effusively thanked their mothers for their success? “She drove me to my
practice at four in the morning,” etc. Writing is not figure skating or skiing.
Your mother will not make you a writer. My advice to any young person who wants
to write is: leave home.” ― Paul Theroux
“It’s a great lesson about not being too
precious about your writing. You have to try your hardest to be at the top of
your game and improve every joke you can until the last possible second, and
then you have to let it go. You can’t be that kid standing at the top of the
waterslide, overthinking it…You have to let people see what you wrote.” ― Tina Fey
“Be daring, take on anything. Don’t labor
over little cameo works in which every word is to be perfect. Technique holds a
reader from sentence to sentence, but only content will stay in his mind.”
― Joyce Carol Oates
“To all the talented young men who wander
about feeling that there is nothing in the world for them to do, I should say:
‘Give up trying to write, and, instead, try not to write. Go out into the
world; become a pirate, a king in Borneo, a labourer in Soviet Russia; give
yourself an existence in which the satisfaction of elementary physical needs
will occupy almost all your energies.’ I do not recommend this course of action
to everyone, but only to those who suffer from the disease which Mr Krutch
diagnoses. I believe that, after some years of such an existence, the
ex-intellectual will find that in spite of is efforts he can no longer refrain
from writing, and when this time comes his writing will not seem to him
futile.” ― Bertrand Russell
“Writing a book is a bit like surfing . . .
Most of the time you’re waiting. And it’s quite pleasant, sitting in the water
waiting. But you are expecting that the result of a storm over the horizon, in
another time zone, usually, days old, will radiate out in the form of waves.
And eventually, when they show up, you turn around and ride that energy to the
shore. It’s a lovely thing, feeling that momentum. If you’re lucky, it’s also
about grace. As a writer, you roll up to the desk every day, and then you sit
there, waiting, in the hope that something will come over the horizon. And then
you turn around and ride it, in the form of a story.” ― Tim Winton
“My advice for aspiring writers is go to New
York. And if you can’t go to New York, go to the place that represents New York
to you, where the standards for writing are high, there are other people who
share your dreams, and where you can talk, talk, talk about your interests.
Writing books begins in talking about it, like most human projects, and in
being close to those who have already done what you propose to do.” ― Walter Kirn
“If you want to write, if you want to create,
you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling.
You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books
and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head,
vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the
stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon
your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that
will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you.
May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories — science fiction
or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next
20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.” ― Ray Bradbury
“Whenever I’m asked what advice I have for
young writers, I always say that the first thing is to read, and to read a lot.
The second thing is to write. And the third thing, which I think is absolutely
vital, is to tell stories and listen closely to the stories you’re being
told.” ― John
Green
“Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease
would you finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this
10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it.
Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to
die.” ― Anne Enright
“On writing, my advice is the same to all. If
you want to be a writer, write. Write and write and write. If you stop, start
again. Save everything that you write. If you feel blocked, write through it
until you feel your creative juices flowing again. Write. Writing is what makes
a writer, nothing more and nothing less. — Ignore critics. Critics are a
dime a dozen. Anybody can be a critic. Writers are priceless. —- Go where the
pleasure is in your writing. Go where the pain is. Write the book you would
like to read. Write the book you have been trying to find but have not found.
But write. And remember, there are no rules for our profession. Ignore rules.
Ignore what I say here if it doesn’t help you. Do it your own way. — Every
writer knows fear and discouragement. Just write. — The world is crying for new
writing. It is crying for fresh and original voices and new characters and new
stories. If you won’t write the classics of tomorrow, well, we will not have
any. Good luck.” ― Anne Rice
Clancy's comment: Yep, don't worry about what others say, just do it, and maintain your own voice. Your writing voice is a part of your DNA.
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