Steven Wright Quotes

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.

My writing process is a mix of research, personal experiences, washing the dishes, raising kids while thinking - then writing.

Never sit staring at a blank page or screen. If you find yourself stuck, write. Write about the scene you're trying to write. Writing about is easier than writing, and chances are, it will give you your way in.

A lot of my ideas for books come from newspaper articles. But I don't like to be actively looking for ideas.

Sit down to write what you have thought, and not to think about what you shall write.

And once I know what the first page is, then the rest will come.

Sometimes reading other writers helps. You learn some little technique that turns out to be useful, or simply are reinspired by the amazing things others do.

I always have a book that I use that somehow inspires my novels.

I'm always looking at ways of shaking up the writing experience because I think it helps.

I'm not a believer that you have to write every day. If I felt industrious, I'd spend ten hours a week writing. The writing is going on all the time in my head; the trick is to capture it. Showers are great. Traffic jams are great.

I've just been writing stuff down as it comes to me. I haven't thought, 'Let me write some major opus here.'

You can't sit down and decide what you want to write about.

My cure for writer's block is to step away from the thing I'm stuck on, usually a novel, and write something totally different. Besides fiction, I write poetry, screenplays, essays and journalism. It's usually not the writing itself that I'm stuck on, but thing I'm trying to write. So I often have four or five things going at once.

Authors like reading. Go figure. So it's not surprising that we sometimes bog down in the research stage of new writing projects.

I'm of the ilk of writers that feels you have to be open to the inspiration.

I don't take notes. I don't have any notebooks. I keep on trying to do that because it seems like a very writerly thing to do, but my mind doesn't work that way. I tend to get the idea for a novel in a big splash.

Business book writing for me is when some set of ideas gets stuck in my mind, I write a book about it. I haven't got a theory and I haven't got a framework.

I do not go down and sit in front of the computer and make myself write; that's not my style.

There's no such thing as a writer's block. If you're having trouble writing, well, pick up the pen and write. No matter what, keep that hand moving. Writing is really a physical activity.

The way to compose for me is to have lots of time.

Professionals don't get writer's block. I can always come up with the punch line.

You know, writing isn't easy. It's tedious. Ideas have a gestation period, and after a while, it becomes difficult.

When I'm writing, I'll just say random stuff that doesn't make sense, and then a certain word that I keep saying will stick out, and I'll write from there.

When I don't have any story in my mind, I am busy doing foundation work.

It's tough to know what I'm going to write about. I never really know until it starts happening.