My 8 Favorite Quotes About Writing

Writing can sometimes feel like an endless uphill struggle when you see other writers gaining momentum to crest the hill with their book signings, movie deals, and bestseller rankings. 

When I need motivation or inspiration or just a reminder that all of the authors I aspire to be like were at one point small unknown writers like myself I look for these quotes.

I hope some of these can motivate you as well.  

"You must write every single day of your life… You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads." - Ray Bradbury

There used to be a part of me that was ashamed of how much I loved to read and write especially when I was younger and my classmates couldn't understand why I had a new book almost every day. (At this point in my life I had read the entire Harry Potter series in a week and was very much sleep deprived.) 

Since growing up and discovering that there are so many people like me who love reading written words and writing words, I wear my love for it now with pride.

I have also taken the advice to write every day more like a challenge to myself. There is nothing stopping me from putting pen to paper every day or words into a document, so I make sure to do it every day. 

"Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open." - Natalie Goldberg

The first story I ever wrote was a story about abuse and heartbreak, and a girl who literally cuts her heart out of her chest to stop it from hurting - I had been 10 at the time. 

I don't know how well that story would even be if I were to look back on it now, and unfortunately, I can't, since it had been shown to one of my teachers by a classmate when I was at lunch break and after a phone call and a visit to the school by my parents - it was confiscated and I had to sit down with a counselor and explain why I had written such a story.  

This wouldn't be the first time my writing had gotten me in trouble and it wouldn't be the last, but even from that first moment, I knew that writing was a way to open my world and bare it on the page for all to see - even if what I had written wasn't something anyone else could handle seeing from a girl so young. 

"The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon." - Robert Cormier

My first drafts are sometimes a mess. I organize my outlines into chapters but sometimes I get fleeting notations about completing later ones first before going back to start at the beginning. This first draft is usually a mess and I know before that first word ever hits the page that I'm going to be doing a lot of editing to make the story what it can be and I've learned to be ok with that. 

I know that my first draft doesn't have to be perfect - it just has to be written. 

"I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I'm afraid of." - Joss Whedon

My characters sometimes have better lives than me and that's ok. They are prettier than I am, stronger, quick-witted, and work through their problems easier than I ever will, but in them, I learn. I learn how they chose to be brave when facing their fears and it helps me face my own because in a way we are one and the same. 

"If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." - Toni Morrison

The very first published book I ever wrote (which has since been removed from the internet due to my poor editing and bad pen name) was based on a TV show I had watched in which I didn't like the ending. I wanted a story to happen that hadn't and I knew there was no one else who was going to write it, so I did. 

I still stand by this novel and will republish it under my name at some point, but it taught me that sometimes you have to make the story you want to read.

"The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can." - Neil Gaiman

I am me and you are you. I could tell you an idea for a novel, give you a chapter-by-chapter outline to complete as I do, and have you write it while I write the very same and we are going to have two stories that will be nothing alike. Sure they may have the same premise, but their world, characters, and themes will be entirely different because we have walked this life in our own shoes and we bring that to everything we write. 

"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." - E.L. Doctorow

When we write we can be whoever it is we want to be. I learned this lesson from my first creative writing teacher when she assigned us to write a love story. If you're familiar with this story you'll know that my teacher had challenged me to bring my horror spin to everything I turned in and I unfortunately never found this same support again from another writing teacher. 

Instead of turning in a love story, I wrote a piece of flash fiction from the perspective of a man who hates everything about women but loved to be inside of them. This story was rude, vile, and disrespectful toward women.

 When my teacher turned my story into the next week's lesson about how as writers we don't have to reveal ourselves on the page, we have the right to be whoever we want to be, a whole new world was opened to us and I've taken that to heart many times.

While it's true we can bare our souls as we write, we can also create new ones through characters we'll never be. 

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot." - Stephen King

This wouldn't be a quotes list about writing if there wasn't at least one Stephen King quote mentioned. 

It may be true that writing is hard to teach, but this is only true if you are trying to teach someone to write who doesn't read. 

Reading itself is like attending a college-level lecture from a famous writer from the comfort of your very own couch. They teach you pacing, dialogue, and how to grow tension, all from the pages of their very books.

A writer should consume books as if they are air. Not just in their favorite genre or the genre they read but everywhere. 

I am currently writing a Psychological Fiction novel, but within this story is a romance. Sure reading thriller novels will help me create the disbelief in the reader and the suspense that I need to bring to this book, but I also need to read romance books to learn to have that aspect be believable. 

Every book in any genre has a lesson to teach you, you just need to find it. 

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Whenever I need the motivation to keep on writing I turn to these quotes and these memories to keep me going and I hope by sharing them with you I have helped you out in some way with your own writing.

Now go write.

With love, 

B. King xo xo 

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