Writer's Tools Quotes

You don’t ask a writer what typewriter he uses.

I love writing in longhand. Writing in longhand, I think, is a marvelous thing to do for a writer these days. If you have a notebook and a nice pen you can go off somewhere, you can write that's solar powered. You can drop it or get it wet and pretty much all of your work will continue to be there. If you suddenly decide to look up a word or check a reference you will not look up four hours later, blinking, finding yourself somehow in the middle of an Ebay auction you never had any plans to be part of.

I keep a journal, like many writers do. It helps in writing a story, as you can use an incident from the journal and put in your story.

A novelist can’t be without a kimono and pen!(Shigure)

My desk is like a 'U,' so I have my computer and lots of dictionaries because I write in Spanish and I live in English.

A writer uses a pen instead of a scalpel or blow torch.

Like most writers, I find the Web is a wonderful distraction. Who doesn't need that last minute research before writing?

Sometimes I'll hear a phrase or a word and write it down in my little black notebook (a writer's best mate), then come back to it and work a plot around it.

I have always been jealous of artists. The smell of the studio, the names of the various tools, the look of a half-finished canvas all shout of creation. What do writers have in comparison? Only the flat paper, the clacketing of the typewriter or the scrape of a pen across a yellow page. And then, when the finished piece is presented, there is a small wonder on one hand, a manuscript smudged with erasures or crossed out lines on the other. The impact of the painting is immediate, the manuscript must unfold slowly through time.

Words are the basic tools, if you are a writer. But why? Why do you choose one set of tools rather than another?

The last time somebody said, 'I find I can write much better with a word processor.', I replied, 'They used to say the same thing about drugs.'

I enthuse about Scrivener to all of my friends. Some of them even listen to me and download it. This is often swiftly followed by an email complaining that it's all very confusing, and they'll stick to Microsoft Word, thanks.