#creative-process

"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."

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

"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]"

"You are one thing only. You are a Divine Being. An all-powerful Creator. You are a Deity in jeans and a t-shirt, and within you dwells the infinite wisdom of the ages and the sacred creative force of All that is, will be and ever was."

"Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

"My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip."

"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."

"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."

"A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."

"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."

"The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first."

"[A]lways get to the dialogue as soon as possible. I always feel the thing to go for is speed. Nothing puts the reader off more than a big slab of prose at the start."(Interview, The Paris Review, Issue 64, Winter 1975)"