#creative-process

"When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day's work is all I can permit myself to contemplate."

"Passion is a deep love for sacred activity."

"I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this.[Cormac McCarthy's Venomous Fiction, New York Times, April 19, 1992]"

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

"First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice."

"One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star."

"Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system."

"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]"

"Writing is something you do alone. Its a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don't want to make eye contact while doing it."[Thoughts from Places: The Tour, Nerdfighteria Wiki, January 17, 2012]"

"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."

"A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead."

"There was a moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you're writing, and aren't writing particularly well."

"Dance above the surface of the world. Let your thoughts lift you into creativity that is not hampered by opinion."

"Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it."(Casual Chance, 1964)"

"When the creative impulse sweeps over you, grab it. You grab it and honor it and use it, because momentum is a rare gift."

"To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make."

"This tremendous world I have inside of me. How to free myself, and this world, without tearing myself to pieces. And rather tear myself to a thousand pieces than be buried with this world within me."

"Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions."(Letter to Alexander Chekhov, May 10, 1886)"

"I don't know exactly where ideas come from, but when I'm working well ideas just appear. I've heard other people say similar things - so it's one of the ways I know there's help and guidance out there. It's just a matter of our figuring out how to receive the ideas or information that are waiting to be heard."