Elmore Leonard Quotes

I write every day. I don't have a writing schedule. I write when I feel like it. Fortunately, I feel like it all the time. I am writing for hours. I do like to write in the morning. I start after breakfast, like 9 o'clock, and I'll write till lunch, about 1. And after lunch, I just have fun.

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

What it takes is to actually write: not to think about it, not to imagine it, not to talk about it, but to actually want to sit down and write. I'm lucky I learned that habit a really long time ago. I credit my mother with that. She was an English teacher, but she was a writer.

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.

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.

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

If you want to be a writer, just write. There's no magic to it.

Write. Enjoy writing. Then, and only then, worry about the business end of it. Start loving your hobby, and then you can't go too wrong.

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 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.

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 write what I'd like to read and just hope that, along the way, others might like to read them, too.

If you wish to be a writer, write.

I've been writing for a long time. I sat down to write my first novel in the middle of March of 1982.

I've always kind of wrote when I wanted to. Once I get the idea in my head and get it outlined out, I usually just sit and write until it's done.

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 think that when I finished a book, I was finished with it. But it's like a wonderful Hydra. Every time a head disappears, more heads appear, so I will be writing for the rest of my life. The more books I write, the more books I find that I still have to write about. I use it like an inspiration, and that's wonderful.

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

Finding the discipline, the motivation, the focus, the passion to sit down in front of a blank piece of paper or a blank computer screen every day and then to make it come alive with characters and with plot is incredibly exciting and at the same time terrifying and frustrating, and sometimes it comes easy and sometimes it comes really hard.

I had novels to write, so I wrote them.

When I am occupied with a work that requires continuity - a novel, for example - I write every day.

I'm addicted to creating and writing.

I write everywhere. I've written books while I was on planes, at Disney World, and in multiple countries of which I am not a native. It can be a struggle to make word count sometimes, but I will persevere!

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.

I'm very lucky. I actually like screenwriting. I rarely feel a sense of doom going to my desk.