Janis Ian Quotes

The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It's not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author. You really have to lock yourself away, alone, and get to work.

At the age of seventeen, I decided I would spend my life writing fiction. I didn't know what this entailed, exactly - a room, I supposed. A room and books and paper and solitude.

If you want to be a writer, write a little bit every day. Pay attention to the world around you. Stories are hiding, waiting everywhere. You just have to open your eyes and your heart.

I have met so many people who say they've got a book in them, but they've never written a word. To be a writer - this may seem trite, I realize - you have to actually write.

As a writer, I've always been somebody who's been productive and hustled hard.

To be a writer, you need to like spending a lot of time by yourself in the company of imaginary people.

For any writers at all, read everything you can and then put your butt in the chair and write. That's all there is to it.

I started writing when I was about 20, 21 maybe.

How do we live the writer's life? There's only one simple answer: 'we write.'

The point always is to be writing something - it leads to more writing.

The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.

I like writing. I get cranky when I can't. Yes, I write books back to back, and I work very hard on them.

I didn't have any desire I might have had 10 years ago to shoot every single word that I wrote.

I spend most of every day writing. I like to write every day if I can. I don't start extremely early.

But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That's all.

I've lost track of the number of people who want to be writers but never actually write anything. Talking about writing, dreaming about writing, can be very fun, but it won't get a book written. You've got to write.

Don't romanticise your 'vocation.' You can either write good sentences or you can't. There is no 'writer's lifestyle.' All that matters is what you leave on the page.

My method is, I just sit down and write a book.

I would say, number one, don't worry about getting published. Just write. Number two, just write. Three is make sure you read.

I just write from dawn to dusk.

Not intending to be funny: I sit at the keyboard, put my fingers on the keys and go. To me, it's the real secret of writing. Put yourself in front of the screen or the blank sheet of paper and get to work.

I write every day. I'm always in the process of writing my last book, until the next one.

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.

The main thing about writing is... writing. Sitting your butt down in the chair and doing the work.

People always ask, 'How do you write so many books?' And I say, I work a lot. I work six or seven days a week.