Laini Taylor Quotes

I think one of the pitfalls of doing your own music is that sometimes you can never be satisfied with it: you're afraid to say that it's done, and you keep reworking it or re-recording it or re-writing it.

I have a hard time revising sentences, because I spend an inordinate amount of time on each sentence, and the sentence before it, and the sentence after it.

In my case, the long gaps between my books have got quite a lot to do with lack of confidence. A lot of the time when I'm not writing I start thinking I can't do it.

Anxiety and doubt are among my biggest struggles as a writer.

Unfortunately, I am very aware of editing and I look at the monitor too much. Sometimes the monitor can become your worst enemy because you can, consciously or unconsciously, start editing yourself.

For a long time I managed to think two things simultaneously, that I am actually a good playwright, and that the next time I write a play I will be revealed as someone who is no good at all.

If you give yourself too much time, you kind of over-obsess about the music. It's not supposed to be like that.

Every time I start a new piece of work, I spend a long while under the duvet thinking I can't do it.

Lack of confidence - every time I start a new piece of work, it seems I have to spend a long while under the duvet thinking I can't do it.

I have a hard time sometimes watching my own work.

If you're a writer, you're constantly doubting yourself.

I got songs; I just never release them. I don't know why. A lot of people say I need to put it out. I guess I haven't made it my focus.

The fear of mistakes is the fast track to irrelevance.

Artists tend to get this thing called demo-itis, and I'm extremely guilty of that.

Perfectionism has nothing to do with getting it right. It has nothing to do with fixing things. It has nothing to do with standards. Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move forward. It is a loop-an obsessive, debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck in the details of what you are writing or painting or making and to lose sight of the whole.

My wanting to write books annihilates the original root impulse that would have me bravely and blunderingly working on them.

I second-guess and overthink and rethink every single thing that I do.

Nothing would be done at all if one waited until one could do it so well that no one could find fault with it.

I relate to the feeling that Da Vinci was often plagued by the idea that what he did wasn't good enough, that he was his harshest critic. He'd sometimes destroy what he was working on.

I don't write well when I'm sitting there sweating about every single phrase.

Perfectionism kills art. I find that if I criticise myself, it spoils the fun. You can get paralysed by analysis - it takes all the playfulness away.

I think of these things as obstacles rather than opportunities, because if they were opportunities it means I actually took the business of doing them seriously. To take myself too seriously is the gentle kiss of death.

God, I'm such a lazy writer - I can't even think up new names.

When I was younger, before I was married and had children, I really was nit-picky, a perfectionist. I was very much into different people's approval. I had too much time on my hands, I think.

But if I worried too much about publishers' expectations, I'd probably paralyze myself and not be able to write anything.