Helen Vendler Quotes

My process is thinking, thinking and thinking - thinking about my stories for a long time.

I usually write things in my head before I ever write them down. When I write it out, usually I've already figured out what it is I'm trying to do.

Much of the activity we think of as writing is, actually, getting ready to write.

I do a lot of mental work before I ever start writing.

A lot of writing is thinking.

I can write two scripts concurrently, but I usually prefer to do one at a time. However, I also usually have 5 or 6 story ideas that are percolating in my head at any one time, so it can get a little crowded in there.

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

By the time I sit down ready to write, I've done a lot of longhand and a lot of note collecting along the way.

I typically spend a year thinking about a book before I begin writing it.

Ideas do not exist apart from the men and women who create them.

I don't think it matters how fast you write. It's how long you thought about it. I like to think of it as a well filling up. I think about it until the well is full, and then I let go.

Good thinkers always prime the pump of ideas. They always look for things to get the thinking process started, because what you put in always impacts what comes out.

I think about my films for a long time, maybe years, but I write them in days.

If I was going to write something, I'd need to stop for three months and just see if I had any thoughts in there.

After that, I specifically started writing lyrics. I would like sweat and think and get it all together.

My favourite part of writing a book is thinking up the ideas, and that can start a long time before I actually sit down at my desk.

I do a lot better if I sit around and think about a character for a couple of months.

Having each some shingles of thought well dried, we sat and whittled them.

After all, most writing is done away from the typewriter, away from the desk. I'd say it occurs in the quiet, silent moments, while you're walking or shaving or playing a game, or whatever, or even talking to someone you're not vitally interested in.

I'm not a craftsman of graphics or art or film. I'm more of an idea generator and manufacturer.

I don't start writing a script until I can see it all in my head, then it's a matter of getting it down in white heat.

Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself - it is the occurring which is difficult.

Having imagination it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that if you were unimaginative would take you only a minute.

I'm getting ready to write a piece now, and it's been six months thinking about it, changing the instrumentation, changing the name, doing more reading.

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.