Eden Robinson Quotes

When I'm writing a first draft of a script, I can disappear into that for two, three months exclusively.

The first draft of anything is sh*t.

It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly.

Editing while you're writing is like strangling the baby in the crib.

You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page.

I found some time ago that I have to be careful, while working on a novel, what I read.

Sometimes I write less than I'd like but do research. Other times, editor's notes or a copy-edited manuscript or page proofs for a forthcoming novel mean that I need to put my attentions elsewhere for a day or two, but I always come back to writing.

I don't do rewrites. I put all the pages in a pile next to the typewriter.

It is actually a lot harder to sit down and write from A to Z. But for me at least, it's the only way I can do it, at this point, with any moderate success.

When you're stuck, and sure you've written absolutely garbage, force yourself to finish and then decide to fix or scrap it - or you will never know if you can.

I find getting the first draft down to be the biggest challenge. Every word, every punctuation mark, every plot point is a decision. It's much more fun to play with something that already exists.

It's not that I sit down and write great stuff without thinking, not at all. Most of it is terrible. But the stuff that feels fun and fresh to me tends to happen fairly unthinkingly.

In a first draft, I concentrate on moving forward and trying not to panic.

I'm a big believer in puking out all your thoughts in a single sitting and getting some version of the work down, because the alternative just prolongs the agony. The first draft is hideous and ajskdlkdfksjdfslfjk, but it's just a map for where the big blocks go.

I never reread a text until I have finished the first draft. Otherwise it's too discouraging.

It is better to write a bad first draft than to write no first draft at all.

Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something-anything-down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft-you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft-you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it's loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy.

If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it-bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn't belong there.

When you write - explode - fly apart - disintegrate! Then give time enough to think, cut, rework, and rewrite.

The first two chapters of any first draft generally need to be cut.

Don't look back until you've written an entire draft.

Seventy percent of a first draft is garbage and 30 percent is gold, but you have to write 100 percent to get that 30.

I think kids abandon stories all the time. They start stories and get frustrated or get a different, better idea. I think that it is more worthwhile to stick with a story and revise it and try to finish it than abandon ship. Revisions, for any writer, are the name of the game.

Don't look back until you've written an entire draft, just begin each day from the last sentence you wrote the preceeding day. This prevents those cringing feelings, and means that you have a substantial body of work before you get down to the real work which is all in . . . The edit.

You write your first draft with your heart and you re-write with your head. The first key to writing is to write, not to think.