Jodi Picoult 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.

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.

Get your butt in a chair and write. If it comes out weak or bad or clunky or ordinary, then accept that this happens to everyone. Everyone. Get it down, get it done, and fix it in the rewrite. Just like everyone from Stephen King to J. K. Rowling to Chuck Palahniuk does.

I'm a big believer in puking out all your thoughts in a single sitting and getting some version of the work down, because the alternative just prolongs the agony. The first draft is hideous and ajskdlkdfksjdfslfjk, but it's just a map for where the big blocks go.

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

Write every day, just to keep in the habit, and remember that whatever you have written is neither as good nor as bad as you think it is. Just keep going, and tell yourself that you will fix it later.

Many people think that it is important to have a title before you begin writing the book, but I think you should never sit around waiting for the right title to strike before you start writing. Crack on with the story, put in the hard work, and the title will come eventually.

Many first-time novelists end up rewriting their first two or three chapters, trying to get them 'just right.' But the point of the first draft is not to get it right; it's to get it written - so that you'll have something to work with.

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, cliched writing, outright flailing around. Writing that doesn't have a good voice or any voice. But then there will be good moments.

I can always write. Sometimes, to be sure, what I write is crap, but it's words on the page and therefore it is something to work with.

Write every day even if it is just a paragraph.

Never sit staring at a blank page or screen. If you find yourself stuck, write. Write about the scene you're trying to write. Writing about is easier than writing, and chances are, it will give you your way in.

The waste basket is the writer's best friend.

My writing process, such as it is, consists of a lot of noodling, procrastinating, dawdling, and avoiding.

I should be concentrating on writing pages.

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

'Purple Plumeria' I dithered over for months and then wrote the whole thing between the beginning of July and end of August. The dithering and procrastination time was three times the writing times.

Don't keep rewriting and polishing something if it isn't setting the world on fire: start something new instead and consider the earlier story a learning experience.

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.'

It is better to write a bad first draft than to write no first draft at all.

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.

Don't look back until you've written an entire draft, just begin each day from the last sentence you wrote the preceeding day. This prevents those cringing feelings, and means that you have a substantial body of work before you get down to the real work which is all in . . . The edit.

Not intending to be funny: I sit at the keyboard, put my fingers on the keys and go. To me, it's the real secret of writing. Put yourself in front of the screen or the blank sheet of paper and get to work.

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

Writing is probably one-fifth coming up with the stuff, and four-fifths self-editing again and again and again.