Martha Grimes Quotes

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 often feel like not writing! Sometimes I overcome it by just sitting there until writing happens. Sometimes I don't write, because books often need periods of percolation.

I don't believe in writer's block. There are good days when you're writing and less good days. I've learned that if it's not happening to walk away and return later. I doodle a lot and often get my best ideas with a pencil in my hand while I'm doodling. The problem is, sometimes I lose my doodles and that's bad!

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.

An author who waits for the right 'mood' will soon find that 'moods' get fewer and fewer until they cease altogether.

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

I've never had a writer's block, but still I think: 'Is it going to happen this time?' You never know what you're going to get; you just put your fingers on the keys and hope.

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.

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

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

I never get writer's block, but I do have days where I crawl under the duvet.

Sometimes I'll go without writing for a while and I'll start to be driven nuts. I start doubting my writing ability. So I'll sit down and a dozen songs will pop out. It's fun.

Sometimes you don't really know what you're going to write about. I mean, there's times where you get into a writing room and it's a complete flop. And then there's times where you get to a writing room and you're like, 'Oh, I'm just on a roll.'

Writing is?waiting for the word that may not be there until next Tuesday.

Better to write twaddle, anything, than nothing at all.

... 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.

I show up and try, but I may have to ask myself if I need to wait and let myself regenerate and take a break. I know that this thing that makes the stories has to be treated gently. So sometimes I'll just stop and let the well fill up. With my work, sometimes I hate doing it, but I love having done it. The key is to keep doing it.

Inspiration and creativity, they ride right next to one anotherNot everyday are you going to wake up, the clouds are gonna part and the rays are gonna come downsometimes you gotta just get in there and force yourself to work and maybe something good will come out of it.

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.

Having imagination it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that if you were unimaginative would take you only a minute.

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

I write a chapter, then edit it and edit it and edit it and edit it. I don't think we mine creativity from within. It's bestowed from on high, from God.

I've often said that there's no such thing as writer's block; the problem is idea block.

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.

For a long time, I would write without music, because I thought it was distracting until I appreciated that it actually unlocks a certain unconscious productivity vault in my mind.