Tim Schafer Quotes

Write a little every day, without hope, without despair.

I started writing every day. I never stopped.

Writing is total grunt work. A lot of people think it's all about sitting and waiting for the muse. I don't buy that. It's a job. There are days when I really want to write, days when I don't. Every day I sit down and write.

I'm not the most talented writer in the world. I know that. But I also know that I'm disciplined, that I work my butt off, and that I make myself write as much as I can. Writer's block is a luxury I can't afford. I'm a professional writer, which means that I put my butt in the chair each day, and I write. Simple as that.

Write 1000 words a day. That's only about four pages, but force yourself to do it. Put your finger down your throat and throw up. That's what writing's all about.

Here's the bottom line; writers write. Sometimes words flow easily. Sometimes it's like sloughing through mud. Either way a professional writer keeps writing.

If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day... You don't go to a well once but daily. You don't skip a child's breakfast or forget to wake up in the morning.

I've been writing every day of my life for 65 years.

Try to develop actual work habits, and even though you have a busy life, try to reserve an hour, say - or more - a day to write. Some very good things have been written on an hour a day.

What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat,’.... And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.

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.

I write every day for most of the work day, and I try to write 2,500 words per day... If I don't make it a routine and treat it like a job, I'd never get anything done.

For me, the process always has to be pretty intense. I could never write just two or three days a week. It had to be every day.

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...

I like to feel that every day or most days, I do a little bit of writing. I am a creature of habit in terms of the way I live.

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

Write something every single day, even if it's just three lines. And it doesn't matter if it's any good - just write something every day.

If you want to get into the creative world, you have to just keep flogging away even when nobody's paying attention. Because then when somebody finally does pay attention, it's certainly a lot more interesting when you have a ton of stuff to show.

It's a job. When I'm writing I'm going to do it five to six days a week and I'm going to work for four to six hours a day. There's no magic writing fairy. It's just hard work.

And I have this little litany of things they can do. And the first one, of course, is to write - every day, no excuses. It's so easy to make excuses. Even professional writers have days when they'd rather clean the toilet than do the writing.

Aim to write for an hour per day. I used to be a teacher, and an hour a day before school was all it took for me to write my first book. Don't get discouraged if a holiday or illness interrupts your writing habit. Just start it up again.

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

It's essential to have sacred time for writing. All successful authors have some daily commitment to keep on-track and moving forward.

I work all day, morning and afternoon, just about every day. If I sit there like that for two or three years, at the end I have a book.

I'm always trying. Between every book, I think, 'Well now, it's time to get down to the serious stuff.'