Overcoming Writer's Block Quotes

Being a real writer means being able to do the work on a bad day.

Writing a book is hard. It turns out, writing a second book is twice as hard.

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again.

If I can get it down on paper without puking all over the word processor, then as far as I'm concerned, it's fit to see the light of day.

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

You can recover from the writing malady only by falling mortally ill and dying.

I find the most difficult part of writing is to get it down initially because what you have written is usually so terrible that it's disheartening; you don't want to go on. That's what I think is hard - the discouragement that comes from seeing what you have done.

I usually have more than one thing I'm working on at once - I've been working on three different novels. When I get stuck on one, I hop back and forth.

When I visit schools and talk to students about writing, I give them one word of advice and I give it to them quickly and loudly-FINISH! Starting something is easier than finishing it. You must have discipline to go from a few sentences, to a few paragraphs, to a piece of writing that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Finishing something bridges the difference between someone who has talent and one who does not. My best advice? Apply the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair-and finish. FINISH!

The thing about writing is that if you have the impulse, you will find the time.

I wonder, when a writer's blocked and doesn't have any resources to pull himself out of it, why doesn't he jump in his car and drive around the U.S.A.? I went last winter for seven thousand miles and it was lovely. Inexpensive, too.

On the whole, anything that gets you writing and keeps you writing is a good thing. Anything that stops you writing is a bad thing.

If you write, good ideas must come welling up into you so that you have something to write. If good ideas do not come at once, or for a long time, do not be troubled at all. Wait for them. Put down little ideas no matter how insignificant they are. But do not feel, any more, guilty about idleness and solitude.

The two hardest things about writing are starting and not stopping.

Writing is hard work, and if anything's true about the process, it's that fact that a good story is hard to find and even trickier to get on paper. What's less romantic than staring alone at a blank screen? And edgy? I've changed the cat little because I didn't know what my characters were going to say next.

I've never worked a day in my life. The joy of writing has propelled me from day to day and year to year. I want you to envy me, my joy. Get out of here tonight and say: 'Am I being joyful?' And if you've got a writer's block, you can cure it this evening by stopping whatever you're writing and doing something else. You picked the wrong subject.

They say it is the first step that costs the effort. I do not find it so. I am sure I could write unlimited 'first chapters'. I have indeed written many.

If you want to be a writer, write. Write and write and write. If you stop, start again. Save everything that you write. If you feel blocked, write through it until you feel your creative juices flowing again. Write. Writing is what makes a writer, nothing more and nothing less.

Writing doesn't come easily to me. It gets more and more difficult.

The most important thing in writing is to have written. I can always fix a bad page. I can't fix a blank one.

Don't tear up the page and start over again when you write a bad line-try to write your way out of it. Make mistakes and plunge on. Writing is a means of discovery, always.

The roughest part for me when I'm writing a song is staring at a blank page. Where am I going from here? If you're a songwriter, you have to do that every time you start a song.

Writing is not hard. Just get paper and pencil, sit down, and write as it occurs to you. The writing is easy-it's the occurring that's hard.

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

The hardest thing about writing is writing.