Charles Stross Quotes

I tell my students there is such a thing as 'writer's block,' and they should respect it. You shouldn't write through it. It's blocked because it ought to be blocked, because you haven't got it right now.

Writer's block is a myth. I never see the gardeners suffering from gardening block.

When I write I just keep a waste paper basket handy in case I am experiencing a block.

I don't think that writer's block exists really. I think that when you're trying to do something prematurely, it just won't come. Certain subjects just need time, as I've learned over and over again. You've got to wait before you write about them.

... I had never given much credence to the phenomenon of "writer's block". I was more inclined to think of it as "writer's impatience", and to follow Arthur Koestler's dictum: "Soak; and wait.

There's a practical problem about time and energy, and a more subtle problem of what it does to a writer's head, to continually analyze why they write, where it all comes from, where it's going to.

I think writer's block is simply the dread that you are going to write something horrible. But as a writer, I believe that if you sit down at the keys long enough, sooner or later something will come out.

I haven't had writer's block. I think it's because my process involves writing very badly.

Writer's block? I've never heard of a plumber complain about plumber's block.

Usually if a scene's really hard to write, I just don't write it. Nothing's coming to mind.

There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't write.

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 haven’t had trouble with writer’s block. I think it’s because my process involves writing very badly. My first drafts are filled with lurching, clichéd writing, outright flailing around. Writing that doesn’t have a good voice or any voice. But then there will be good moments. It seems writer’s block is often a dislike of writing badly and waiting for writing better to happen.

That famous writer’s block is a myth as far as I’m concerned. I think bad writers must have a great difficulty writing. They don’t want to do it. They have become writers out of reasons of ambition. It must be a great strain to them to make marks on a page when they really have nothing much to say, and don’t enjoy doing it. I’m not so sure what I have to say but I certainly enjoy making sentences.

I've often said that there's no such thing as writer's block; the problem is idea block. When I find myself frozen-whether I'm working on a brief passage in a novel or brainstorming about an entire book-it's usually because I'm trying to shoehorn an idea into the passage or story where it has no place.

I had to educate him that there was no such thing as writer's block, that writers write when they write, and when they don't, they don't.

Unlike some of my peers, I haven't really hit a writer's block. When I hit a block I just paint, which is an old crop rotation trick.

When you're writing a movie or a play and writing isn't going well, which is for me the normal condition - it's an exceptional day when suddenly I've got something and it's going well - you can call the studio or the producer or whoever is waiting for it and say, "I know I said I was going to have it in by the end of the summer.

Prescription for writer’s block: fear of poverty.

All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don't get plumber's block, and doctors don't get doctor's block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it?

Writer’s block is my unconscious mind telling me that something I’ve just written is either unbelievable or unimportant to me, and I solve it by going back and reinventing some part of what I’ve already written so that when I write it again, it is believable and interesting to me. Then I can go on. Writer’s block is never solved by forcing oneself to “write through it,” because you haven’t solved the problem that caused your unconscious mind to rebel against the story, so it still won’t work – for you or for the reader.

Beginning a novel is always hard. It feels like going nowhere. I always have to write at least 100 pages that go into the trashcan before it finally begins to work. It's discouraging, but necessary to write those pages. I try to consider them pages -100 to zero of the novel.

It does feel great to be writing, but the process is sometimes excruciating.

I've only suffered writer's block badly once, and that was during the writing of Chamber of Secrets. I had my first burst of publicity about the first book and it paralysed me. I was scared the second book wouldn't measure up, but I got through it!

Editing is hard but nowhere NEAR as tough as facing that blank page and blinking cursor each day. You're all alone and no one else can do it. At least with editing you have someone in the trench with you.