Lisa Lutz Quotes

I spent most of this afternoon writing a new introduction for my autobiography.

I am sure it has been done with less, but you should be prepared to write and throw away a million words of finished material. By finished, I mean completed, done, ready to submit, and written as well as you know how at the time you wrote it. You may be ashamed of it later, but that's another story.

I have a high guilt quotient. A poem can go through as many as 50 or 60 drafts. It can take from a day to two years-or longer.

Re-writing is different from writing. Original writing is very difficult.

Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author.

There may be a point where I may decide to write an autobiography.

I think anything that anyone writes that's any good is going to have a lot of autobiography.

In my office I have a sign that says, 'Don't think. Just write!' and that's how I work. I try not to worry about each word, or even each sentence or paragraph. For me, stories evolve. Writing is a process. I rewrite each sentence, each manuscript, many times.

I started trying to write when I was in second or third grade.

It would probably take me an hour to two to write it down, get the feel of it, and that's with quite a few changes. It's not really a hard thing for me to do.

I always say when you write a book, you're a 'one-man band.' Whereas, when you finish a screenplay, it's just a sketch.

Outlining is not writing. Coming up with ideas is not writing. Researching is not writing. Creating characters is not writing. Only writing is writing.

'One With You' was the hardest book I have ever written. I rewrote it three times.

Anyone can write your own life story.

It is extremely satisfying when you finish a script, but the process of it can be just nerve-wracking.

Someday, I'll write a book about what I've been through.

I was attempting to write the story of my life. It wasn't so much about plot. It was much more about character.

I rewrote the ending of 'Farewell to Arms' 39 times before I was satisfied.

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.

I think I'm too lazy a writer to do something like historical fiction. You have to do so much research. I just write what I know.

I write a very rough first draft of every chapter, then I rewrite every chapter. I try to get it down in the first rewrite, but some chapters I can't get quite right the third time. There are some I go over and over and over again.

By the time you write the last page you have done half the book. The other half tends to get done in about five weeks; I do several drafts, very, very furiously rewriting. I literally do more or less nothing else and I stick with it and go through it and I begin to hate it.

I can't understand how anyone can write without rewriting everything over and over again.

I have seldom written a story, long or short, that I did not have to write and rewrite. There are single stories of mine that have taken me ten or twelve years to get written.

I write very quickly; I rewrite very slowly. It takes me nearly as long to rewrite a book as it does to get the first draft.