Rick Riordan Quotes

There's no secret, but inspiration has to find you working. And that's one of the key things that I've always remembered. And if I put my mind to it tonight, I think I could take a guitar, and by 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, something will have happened - I'll have had something to hang onto. But I think that's the key.

I get so many ideas for songs, but I'm so seldom disciplined enough to sit down and crank them out.

I go into my workroom seven mornings a week. There will only be one or two mornings a week where it seems to be going well, but to earn those days you have to go through slow, slodgy days where your mind feels like porridge.

I don't believe in writer's block or waiting for inspiration. If you're a writer, you sit down and write.

Early in my songwriting career, when I was learning a lot about writing songs, I'd force myself to sit down until I came up with something.

Some days, you will sit down, and you write tens of thousands of words. Others, you have to force yourself to write a single sentence.

A manuscript under way always gave me something to do; only while enduring the aimlessness between books was I truly glum.

I don't have certain kinds of fatigue. My focus stays strong - I can work on a song for six or seven hours in one day and not get bored or tired of it.

If you're concentrating so damn hard on a piece of mathematics or a musical - a piece of music or a piece of art, the restraint that holds the rest of - the rest of the world back off and vanishes in the rest of your life.

Write even when the world is chaotic. You don’t need a cigarette, silence, music, a comfortable chair, or inner peace to write. You just need ten minutes and a writing implement.

Discipline is the servant of inspiration.

Sometimes when I'm stuck, I really do need that cup of tea, or that chocolate, or a break, or a walk, but in most cases what I actually need to do is make myself keep writing until it flows again.

Art doesn't spring from the muses alone, but from hard work.

I don't generally listen to music while working, but sometimes music can help me get past minor writer's block.

Most people wait for the muse to turn up. That's terribly unreliable. I have to sit down and pursue the muse by attempting to work.

Weirdly, often the more I write, the more ideas I have.

It's all discipline and schedule for me. I mean, it's very easy to get distracted by the real world and things that intrude constantly, and it takes dedication to live totally in your head and be tuned out.

I wish somebody had given me the news that ideas don't just fall on your head like fairy dust. You have to treat that like a job. You have to spend hours each day, where you're just like, 'This is the part of the day when I'm looking for an idea.'

I always have music playing in my studio when I design. It really gets me in the mood and allows me to focus.

Sometimes I write with music on, and if I'm in a good flow, I don't even hear it.

When I'm writing, I write every day. It's lovely when that's happening. One day dovetailing into the next. Sometimes I don't even know what day of the week it is.

I'm not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning, put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I've never understood.

You always need that spark of imagination. Sometimes I'm midway through a book before it happens. However, I don't wait for the muse to descend, I sit down every day and I work when I'm not delivering lambs on the farm.

My writing life is always a bit disorganized. It's hard for me to get going, but sometimes, once I begin, I go like the wind.

If you really want to write, then shut yourself in a room, close the door, and WRITE. If you don't want to write, do something else. It's as simple as that.