Erma Bombeck Quotes

I used to get up and write every day, even if I wasn't working on a specific thing. Now, when I have a thing I'm in the middle of, I do that, but when I'm not, time can go by when I'm not writing at all.

If you can't think of what to write, tough luck; write anyway.

A journalist also needs to be disciplined, and so do I. I am, essentially, lazy. Without discipline I'd be just a mass of gummy bears on the sofa instead of on book tour with my eighth novel.

The hard part of writing at all is sitting your ass down in a chair and writing it. There's always something better to do, like I've got an interview, sharpening the pencils, trimming the roses. There's always something better to do. Going to a writer's club?

On a good day I write, all day.

A writer who isn't writing is asking for trouble.

I write all the time, whether I feel like it or not. I never get inspired unless I'm already writing.

I have no discipline, which is a horrible flaw for any writer. Once I'm well started on a project, though, then I'm addicted to it all day long. When it's done, I collapse and have to really kick myself to start a new one.

Shut up and write. Don't talk about writing, just physically do it.

I don't believe in writer's block. I don't know what that is. There are just certain little areas that I know I'm going to get through. It's just a matter of finding a way.

I don't believe in writer's block. Most of writer's block is having too much time on your hands. My mantra is that you can always edit a bad page; you can't edit a blank page.

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.

I have nothing like a writing routine. I sometimes have trouble buckling down to write at home.

I write about two hours a day, and I write in fits and spurts - 45 minutes here, a half-hour there - and when I get stuck, which happens often, I take the dogs for a walk. But during the time when I'm not actually writing, I'm thinking.

The one ironclad rule is that I have to try. I have to walk into my writing room and pick up my pen every weekday morning.

I don't even subscribe to writer's block being a truthful thing. I've had writer's laziness quite often. But I think it's all about sitting down and facing down the blank page and doing it, and I've always been ok at that.

I write every day. Most weekdays, I write about ten hours a day. That doesn't mean eight hours of surfing the Net or watching videos on YouTube. I park my butt in a chair and write... I learned that writer's block is a myth created by people who don't have, or understand, a writing process.

I've always prided myself on my discipline as a writer. I do it like a job. I get up in the morning and go to my desk.

When I sit at my table to write, I never know what it's going to be until I'm under way. I trust in inspiration, which sometimes comes and sometimes doesn't. But I don't sit back waiting for it. I work every day.

I can't write every day. I have to skip a day in between. If I try to do it every day, nothing comes.

Successful writers say you should never work from a desk with a view, and the view I have from this one is a huge distraction. There's a garden bursting with fresh vegetation, and just beyond the high wall at the end of it, I can see the sign of the local pub across the road. Distractions, eh? I'm so easily led.

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.

Don't fall into the trap of having to have everything perfect to write or wait until the mood strikes you. If you want it as a job, treat it like a job, and just as you don't go to work only when you feel like it, you have to condition yourself to sit and write even when the ideas don't flow.

The only strategy I know of is to write every day, which I don't always do, because sometimes I just can't, for various reasons that seem out of my control.

But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That's all.