Erica Jong Quotes

When you are in the field of creativity, you lose track of time. Only the flow exists.

I don't drive, so one of my assistants drives me to my writing room, and I have a calendar on the wall telling me how much time I have left, and how far behind I am. I look at it and panic, and decide which scene to work on. And you sit there plonking notes until something makes sense, and you don't think about it any more. Good tunes come when you're not thinking about it.

In the experience of art, time seems not to exist. When I'm writing and think, "I've been working for two hours," I've actually been working for seven.

If I'm really working on something, writing or painting or really concentrating, I don't even think about brushing my hair.

Part of my function as a writer is to dream awake. And that usually happens. If I sit down to write in the morning, in the beginning of that writing session and the ending of that session, I'm aware that I'm writing. I'm aware of my surroundings. It's like shallow sleep on both ends, when you go to bed and when you wake up. But in the middle, the world is gone and I'm able to see better.

I write pretty fast, probably faster than most people. But I might think about something for six hours, then write it in 20 minutes. So did I write for six hours and 20 minutes, or just 20 minutes? I used to write absolutely every day, except for days when I had to travel or something.

On a good day I write, all day.

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

I think people who create and write, it actually does flow-just flows from into their head, into their hand, and they write it down. It's simple.

When I wrote my novel, 'The Ministry of Special Cases,' I couldn't even brush my teeth. I had to write in isolation from everything else. I thought a play would take away from my fiction, but the more projects I work on, the more time I have.

He loved the scratching of pencil against paper when he was focused: it meant something was happening.

If I find out I have to write today and nothing else, that’s a perfect day. I know a lot of people who are great at it and make it look easy who are tortured and miserable people. Writing for me is perfect peace.

I never feel so alive as when I'm writing and the work is going well.

The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slow, I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words instead of being pulled by them.

If one is the kind of creature I am and wants to do the kind of writing I want to do, an undisturbed bourgeois existence with no distractions seems in order. A single meeting outside the family upsets one's whole inner web, makes one start off on two-days' thinking and weighing, destroys a delicate balance etc. etc. ... I now have enough friends to last me a lifetime and that is enough. I am going to close the doors and hibernate at least for a couple of years. I am frightfully depressed about my work. It seems to me perfectly mediocre.

All I'm doing is writing it down and putting it in a cadence. Once I get into a cadence, then why should I even stop and wonder what it is? You can do that for the rest of your life, but when it's coming out, you don't want to stop it.

When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens.

I'm always writing. It's kind of a curse: You never stop. But I need isolation to write. So the real meat of the material comes when I'm off the road.

There are days when the result is so bad that no fewer than five revisions are required. In contrast, when I'm greatly inspired, only four revisions are needed.

When I'm sitting at my computer writing, I really have this fiendish smile on my face. I am not thinking about the past or the future or how it's going to be received. I feel that I'm very lucky that way; I don't carry that particular anxiety around with me. I'm not anxiety-free by any means, but that happens to be one that I've been spared.

If I get ideas independently of the act of writing, they never really fit. So for me, there's no hanging out, waiting for inspiration.

Writing is like making love. Don't worry about the orgasm, just concentrate on the process.

Writing doesn't require drive. It's like saying a chicken has to have drive to lay an egg.

I think if you're inspired, you don't let a little thing like scheduling and deadlines get in your way.

I think every writer's had the experience of having a really good idea, waiting to write it, and then once you write it, you're like, "Oh I kind of got past the sell by date on this." I'm not connected to the initial spark that was the idea. A lot of that's about staying open.