Sarah Dessen Quotes

I find writing really hard, but then, every author I know finds writing really hard work.

Writing has been as difficult for me as for people who don't like to write and as little fun.

I know there are writers who like to say that every novel is hard, and it doesn't get easier. That may be the case, and I've only written two. But the first, to me, was characterized by an enduring oscillation between perseverance and a profound doubt.

Writing is agony for me. I work at it eight hours every day, hoping to get six pages, but I am satisfied with three.

Every writer I know has trouble writing.

I huff and puff and struggle with every sentence, paragraph and page - sometimes every word as well.

Writing never came naturally and I still have to force my hand to do it.

Writing never comes easy. The difference between Page 2 and Page Nothing is the difference between life and death.

I don't know any writer for whom it comes easily. Maybe John Updike - a story would just seem to come to him whole, you know, out of a personal experience. But the rest of us, I think, are not so lucky, and I had to work hard, yeah.

You know that feeling when you finish a final exam and you think, 'I never want to do that again'? Well I have the same feeling when I finish a novel. Each time I say, 'I think I may retire now' and then after six months the ideas start to churn again. I could never stop.

I envy people who write easily. I enjoy the process, but it's not easeful for me.

I find writing really difficult - definitely the most difficult of all the things I do.

I hated being a novelist when I was 20 - I had nothing to write about.

It wasn't that I couldn't write. I wrote every day. I actually worked really hard at writing. At my desk by 7 A.M., would work a full eight and more. Scribbled at the dinner table, in bed, on the toilet, on the No. 6 train, at Shea Stadium. I did everything I could. But none of it worked.

For me, writing never gets easier. It's always hard work. It doesn't matter how many words you wrote the day before, or how many novels you've completed in the last decade: every day you start fresh again with that same blank page, or that same blank screen.

Let's face it, writing is hell.

Yeah, writers do hate writing.

Until a book starts forming in your head, you always wonder, 'Am I going to be able to do this again?'

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.

I throw everything I have into whatever story I'm writing - and so there's something immensely gratifying about finishing one piece and then starting fresh with a new setting, time period and cast of characters, getting to see the world through a completely different lens each time.

Writing doesn't come easily to me. It gets more and more difficult.

Mine is not a story to tell struggling writers.

I have a problem with beginnings... and endings... and middles. But I don't know what else I would do. I find it very, very difficult to write. It takes everything; it's physically and mentally and emotionally exhausting for me. And my neighbours. And my dog.

Many writers are afraid of writing something bad, so they don't try or give up when their efforts don't lead to a masterpiece right away. If you work at it, you will improve.

Getting to the point where I was ready to write a book has been about a 20-year journey of being, really honestly, too afraid to try - which I think is pretty common for people who are trying to write a large piece of fiction.