332 Quotes About Writers-life

Alertness is a requirement of the writing life, staying nimble on your feet, open to the stories that will rise up and flower around you while you are walking your dog on the beach or taking the kids to soccer practice. The great stories often make their approach with misdirection, camouflage, or smoke screens to hide their passage through your life.

Stories have always hunted me down, jumped out at me from the shadows, stalked me and sought me out, grabbed me by the shirtsleeves, and demanded my full attention. I’ve led a life chock-full of stories, and I know now that you have to be shifty and vigilant and ready to receive their incoming fire. Sometimes it takes the passage of years to reveal their actual meaning or import. They disguise themselves with masks, disfigurements, chimeras, and Trojan horses.

When I write, I wait for the sudden appearance of signs and portents in the air, always on the lookout for secret messages encoded in graffiti or heralds disguised as strangers in the club cars of trains. A bright encounter with twins, a brother and sister, on a morning flight to Rome changed the entire configuration of the Wingo family in The Prince of Tides.

Paradise of Lailah Gifty Akita is reading, wondering and writing.

Day after day, week after week; writing great fiction takes time, emotion, skill and effort.

Writing is my only way of drawing emotions. I know no other enthralling way to do it.

I believe obstacles come as a reminder for writers to remember without conflict there is no story. I am learning to look at life as my teacher in becoming a better writer.

Creativity bleeds from the pen of inspiration.

The lead from her pencil covers her fingers, her knuckles. She rubs out as many words as she writes. Her words always on the verge of being erased. Words written on top of words. Words crossed out. Many of her words are missing. They have been lifted off the pages and rubbed onto her skin. The words that do remain carry her skin with them.