Writing Freedom Quotes

For me, writing essays, prose and fiction is a great way to be self-indulgent.

When I lock myself up to write, I cannot allow myself to think about the censor or the reviewer or anyone but my characters and their story!

I'm totally in control of this tiny, tiny world right there at the typewriter.

Being an author is fun. It's a great job, because I can stay up as late as I want, and if I feel like taking the day off, I do it. Plus, I get to make up silly stories and draw pictures all day.

I don't think age has anything to do with what you write about.

There's something lovely about writing a book, doing what you want. I love the solitariness of it.

Part of my problem as a young writer was that I was too much a New Yorker, always second-guessing the 'market.' I became so discouraged that I decided to write something that would please me alone - that became my sole criterion. And that was when I wrote 'Forgetting Elena,' the first novel I got published.

You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone.

I started my professional career before the blogosphere existed in any sort of meaningful way. I think that my approach as a writer was certainly freer because I wasn't worried, I didn't have commenters on me right from the get-go. I didn't have this instant-reaction culture that young writers have to deal with now. I had different things - I was listed in the phone book and people would look me up and call me and yell at me, but that was about as bad as it got.

Early on my career, I figured out that I just have to write the book I have to write at that moment. Whatever else is going on in the culture is just not that important. If you could get the culture to write your book, that would be great. But the culture can't write your book.

I don't recommend being a bachelor, but it helps if you want to write.

You have total control of it, and when you're an actor, you're subject to production design and costumes and directors and studio choices and producer choices, but when you're writing it, you're creating your own little world in your head, peopled with your little characters. No one is in there monkeying with it, at least not at first - though they will. With this and the other projects I'm working on, it'll have to be given away, and it'll have to be someone else's property.

My favorite thing is being able to follow my inspiration, and the freedom of being a writer is hard to beat.

Remember to write for yourself, not for a market and give yourself time to develop your own style, your own voice. It takes a lifetime. Enjoy it!

I've always found the Write-What-You-Know axiom small and stifling.

When I get moved to write a story, I don't question the story. I dive right in, and I try to ignore the voices that are chattering away at me: 'You can't do that', 'You shouldn't do that'. I just sort of leap and take a chance and go for it.

Many writers will get a contract by selling chapters and outlines or something like that. I wrote the entire novel, and when it was all finished, I would give it to my agent and say, 'Well, here's a novel; sell it if you can.' And they would do that, and it was good because I never had anyone looking over my shoulder.

It's easier for me to write certain character types because of my own life experiences, but I find it too artistically limiting to only write about red-headed kids who grew up in small town Montana. That's really part of the fun of fantasy, I think. Our imagination is basically unlimited. Okay, that's a terrifying thing about fantasy, too.

Writers who sit down and write might judge what they're putting down, but I always just try to barf it out. I'm writing crap, but I'll put it down.

I feel very strong about 'Brother.' This is me. I've been writing with a much more free sky, open and free.

A schoolchild should be taught grammar - for the same reason that a medical student should study anatomy. Having learned about the exciting mysteries of an English sentence, the child can then go forth and speak and write any damn way he pleases.

Writing is something that's great because you get to write every thought that's on your mind; you take your time.

I can't imagine what it would be like to write in a relaxed state. I'm going to be writing some stories for my own interest. I want to experiment with different things and see if I can approach writing with much less control and in a better psychological state. It will be like breaking out of a straitjacket.

My first novel, 'John Crow's Devil,' freed me up to write about the past, and 'The Book of Night Women' freed me up to have a book totally based on voice and being very spontaneous.

I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like child stringing beads in kindergarten, - happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another.