Writing Perseverance Quotes

It's my belief that I was a writer - a very hardworking writer - well before I was published. I did care what others thought, and it was embarrassing when people asked me what I had published, so I didn't talk much about writing; rather, I just kept writing.

When you're stuck, and sure you've written absolutely garbage, force yourself to finish and then decide to fix or scrap it - or you will never know if you can.

I've wanted to be a writer since I was a boy, though it seemed an unlikely outcome since I showed no real talent. But I persevered and eventually found my own row to hoe. Ignorance of other writers' work keeps me from discouragement and I am less well-read than the average bus driver.

When I was 19, I wrote a novel, which was not very good, but I finished it.

Write, write, write-till your fingers break.

My aspiration was to write a book that you could still read in 10 years. That's hard. Then you start doubting every sentence you write.

Novelists are stamina merchants, grinders, nine-to-fivers, and their career curves follow the usual arc of human endeavour.

Gather knowledge about the craft of writing. Immerse yourself in the art of it. Then write. Write yourself silly. Write yourself mad. Write yourself blind. Trust the excitement that builds within you when the idea is good and the writing is superb. You can do it, but that's the hell of it as well as the exultation of it. You have to do it.

[Writing] is harder than you think. You'll be rejected often. If you do it for money, you'll quit. Love it or don't do it.

I was a housewife, so I learned to write in times off, and I don't think I ever gave it up, though there were times when I was very discouraged because I began to see that the stories I was writing were not very good, that I had a lot to learn, and that it was a much, much harder job than I had expected.

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.

Writing is like a sport - you only get better if you practice

Everyone thinks they can be a writer. Most people dont understand whats involved. The real writers persevere. The ones that dont either dont have enough fortitude and they probably wouldnt succeed anyway, or they fall in love with the glamour of writing as opposed to the writing of writing.

People will tell you that writing is too difficult, that it's impossible to get your work published, that you might as well hang yourself. Meanwhile, they'll keep writing and you'll have hanged yourself.

At a certain point in the writing of any book, you become absolutely certain that it's terrible and is only getting more terrible with every word you write. This is normal. You just have to keep going, push your way through, and have faith that, through practice and experience and determination, you will get to the end.

You know, writing is really difficult, and it takes a real patience and a skill. I don't know if I have that. I admire it in others, so much, and I envy it.

The difference between a writer who toughs it out and one who doesn't is that you push through the parts where you know that you've just written seven pages when all you're looking for is one paragraph.

Write regularly, whether you feel like writing or not, and whether you think what you're writing is any good or not.

A lot of writers ... sit in a log cabin by the lake and put their feet up by the fire in the silence and write. If you can have that that's all very well, but the true writer will learn to write anywhere -- even in prison.

I could not have written a novel if I hadn't been a journalist first, because it taught me that there's no muse that's going to come down and bestow upon you the mood to write. You just have to do it. I'm definitely not precious.

I wrote short stories for seven years and used to mail them out. You couldn't send them by e-mail. I called them manila boomerangs. I'd seal the self-addressed stamped envelope inside an envelope and I'd mail it off, and it would come back six weeks later with a rejection letter in it.

Don't let anyone discourage you from writing. If you become a professional writer, there are plenty of editors, reviewers, critics, and book buyers to do that.

I had been attempting novels since I was 14 but always ran out of steam. High hopes, poor craftsmanship.

A professional writer is someone who writes just as well when they're not inspired as when they are.

When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day's work is all I can permit myself to contemplate.