John Lutz Quotes

Writing is hard, hard work; that's just the way it is.

Writing is part intuition and part trial and error, but mostly it's very hard work.

So much of writing isn't the fun parts like we get to discuss. It is sitting there putting the words down.

Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.

I would rather have one article a day of this sort; and these ten or twenty lines might readily represent a whole day's hard work in the way of concentrated, intense thinking and revision, polish of style, weighing of words.

Writing, overall, has never been what I'd call fun. It's fulfilling. It doesn't come real easy for me.

I think with one exception I've never changed an opening sentence after a book was completed.

Writing is a struggle no matter what the genre.

Writing is tough. It's insanely obsessive work.

Writing is just always hard for me. It always feels like drawing blood. It's never particularly easy.

I work very hard at each story, at every sentence.

I try very hard to write the best book I possibly can, every time.

Re-writing is different from writing. Original writing is very difficult.

Writing is hard. I mean, I sit there and work at it.

Writing is hard.

Writing's still the most difficult job I've ever had - but it's worth it.

Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry.

I have to always remember, writing is really hard.

For me, the hardest thing in the world is how to start a book.

I think I wrote 'The Trysting Place' in about three weeks. But it was inexperience that made me have to do that. I didn't feel good about the book all the time I was writing it. It felt a bit like wading through molasses.

I love writing journalism because it's all over in two hours and comes straight off the top of the head. Writing novels is soooooo much harder. It's the hardest thing I've ever done.

I like to edit my sentences as I write them. I rearrange a sentence many times before moving on to the next one. For me, that editing process feels like a form of play, like a puzzle that needs solving, and it's one of the most satisfying parts of writing.

Every really good book was written a little at a time, over time, in tremendous confusion and doubt.

If you're having trouble finishing a book, it might be that you're trying to fix it as you go. Just finish the story, no matter how terrible you think that first draft is. Then let it cool off. In other words, don't look at it for a while. Then you can rewrite it.

I often reread books I have written.