When I sat down to write my book, one of the first things I did before writing each chapter was to look for inspiration from the amazing writers who came before me.
Whether it be about writer's block, overcoming the fear of writing, or even thoughts on how to be a better storyteller, there are always valuable nuggets of information out there. And the best part was that I didn't have to scour the internet for long to find exactly what I needed.
Stephen King, Ernest Hemingway, Herman Mellville ... they were all there for me in the clutch!
So here I am, sharing with you their precious advice about writing a book!
Enjoy!
“Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.” ― Lisa See
“If the book is true, it will find an audience that is meant to read it." — Wally Lamb
"Good fiction’s job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." — David Foster Wallace
A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.” — Samuel Johnson
"I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done." – Steven Wright
“When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.” — George Orwell
"If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." — Toni Morrison
“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” — Madeleine L’Engle
The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it — Ernest Hemingway
“Be courageous and try to write in a way that scares you a little.” – Holly Gerth
“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” — E.L. Doctorow
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OK ... back to more famous and inspiring quotes!
“If I waited for perfection… I would never write a word.” — Margaret Atwood
When writing a novel, a writer should create living people; people, not characters. A character is a caricature.” — Ernest Hemingway
Books are a uniquely portable magic. — Stephen King
"A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time – proof that humans can work magic." – Carl Sagan
“A book is simply the container of an idea—like a bottle; what is inside the book is what matters.” —Angela Carter
“Anyone who is going to be a writer knows enough at 15 to write several novels.”—May Sarton
"Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing."― Norman Mailer
Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e., do not cave into endless requests to have 'essential' and 'long overdue' meetings on those days." ― J.K. Rowling
"To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme." – Herman Melville
“The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better.” – Stephen King
“There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” – W. Somerset Maugham
“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” ~ Edith Lovejoy Pierce
“There is probably no hell for authors in the next world – they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this one.” ~ C.N. Bovee
"I don't care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book." – Ronald Dahl
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