Diane Ackerman Quotes

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

To be a writer is to sit down at one's desk in the chill portion of every day, and to write; not waiting for the little jet of the blue flame of genius to start from the breastbone - just plain going at it, in pain and delight. To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again, and once more, and over and over...

When you're writing fiction or poetry... it really comes down to this: indifference to everything except what you're doing... A young writer could do worse than follow the advice given in those lines.

I just write from dawn to dusk.

You learn to write the same way you learn to play golf... You do it, and keep doing it until you get it right. A lot of people think something mystical happens to you, that maybe the muse kisses you on the ear. But writing isn’t divinely inspired – it’s hard work.

I think the first thing - if you want to be a writer - the first thing you need to do is write. Which sounds like an obvious piece of advice. But so many people have this feeling they want to be a writer and they love to read but they don't actually write very much. The main part of being a writer, though, is being profoundly alone for hours on end, uninterrupted by email or friends or children or romantic partners and really sinking into the work and writing. That's how I write. That's how writing gets done.

Start early and work hard. A writer's apprenticeship usually involves writing a million words (which are then discarded) before he's almost ready to begin. That takes a while.

The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.

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.

When things aren't working out, we have a tendency to say, 'Go do other things,' but you shouldn't do other things. You need to stay at your desk and continue to try to write. You need to insist on it.

Being a writer involves writing. You've got to commit to sitting down and writing instead of Xbox or Netflix.

There's nothing romantic about my work... I don't believe in inspiration. I believe that you get to your desk, you stay there, you work, you think of nothing else. You write and you write, and in the end, you write something good.

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

My life as a writer consists of 1/8 talent and 7/8 discipline.

People on the outside think there's something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn't like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that's all there is to it.

Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.

Write even when the world is chaotic. You don’t need a cigarette, silence, music, a comfortable chair, or inner peace to write. You just need ten minutes and a writing implement.

The real payoff is the writing itself, that a day when you have gotten your work done is a good day, that total dedication is the point.

I find that one of the most important things, as a writer, is to just show up - to just stay in the chair and fight through the difficult patches. As long as you're at the desk, and you're willing to fight it out, eventually the right words will come.

Art doesn't spring from the muses alone, but from hard work.

Sculpture is like farming. If you just keep at it, you can get quite a lot done.

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

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.

I wish somebody had given me the news that ideas don't just fall on your head like fairy dust. You have to treat that like a job. You have to spend hours each day, where you're just like, 'This is the part of the day when I'm looking for an idea.'