Kim Harrison Quotes

I write all the time, whether I feel like it or not. I never get inspired unless I'm already writing.

I used to get up and write every day, even if I wasn't working on a specific thing. Now, when I have a thing I'm in the middle of, I do that, but when I'm not, time can go by when I'm not writing at all.

I did that for 40 years or more. I never had any writer's block. I got up in the morning, sat down at the typewriter - now, computer - lit up a cigarette.

You have to write every day, and you have to write whether you feel like it or not.

You won't make a living writing until you learn to write when you don't want to.

I'm not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning, put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I've never understood.

You always need that spark of imagination. Sometimes I'm midway through a book before it happens. However, I don't wait for the muse to descend, I sit down every day and I work when I'm not delivering lambs on the farm.

I used to write when I was in the mood or felt inspired. Anymore, I write whether I feel inspired or not. It's a discipline. So that's definitely different. It's part of maturing as a person and as a professional.

I don't believe in writer's block or waiting for inspiration. If you're a writer, you sit down and write.

I do not go down and sit in front of the computer and make myself write; that's not my style.

Every day I write. I am not waiting for a great idea from heaven.

I just write when the bell rings. I don't have time to wait for inspiration.

Don't wait for the muse. She has a lousy work ethic. Writers just write.

An author who waits for the right 'mood' will soon find that 'moods' get fewer and fewer until they cease altogether.

I'm a workmanlike writer. I show up every day and treat it like a job. The old rule that writing is like any other job, the first rule is that you must show up. I'm at the keyboard from 9 to 4 every day.

I have to make myself write, sometimes. In the space between poems, you somehow forget how to do it, where to begin. It was good to be task - based for a while. I just came downstairs each day, picked the one I was going to do that day, and wrote.

A journalist also needs to be disciplined, and so do I. I am, essentially, lazy. Without discipline I'd be just a mass of gummy bears on the sofa instead of on book tour with my eighth novel.

Most people wait for the muse to turn up. That's terribly unreliable. I have to sit down and pursue the muse by attempting to work.

I write about two hours a day, and I write in fits and spurts - 45 minutes here, a half-hour there - and when I get stuck, which happens often, I take the dogs for a walk. But during the time when I'm not actually writing, I'm thinking.

The one ironclad rule is that I have to try. I have to walk into my writing room and pick up my pen every weekday morning.

I don't wait for inspiration. I get up and write every day.

I've always prided myself on my discipline as a writer. I do it like a job. I get up in the morning and go to my desk.

Capote wrote every day. He said that's the only way, you have to sit down every day and do it.

I've been known to write 10 pages a day for 10 days running before I take a breath. I am not a disciplined writer. I'm one of those people who laughingly call themselves inspirational writers, which basically means someone who has no control over their own creative process.

I go into my workroom seven mornings a week. There will only be one or two mornings a week where it seems to be going well, but to earn those days you have to go through slow, slodgy days where your mind feels like porridge.