A Quote by Anne Enright

The way to write a book is to actually write a book. A pen is useful, typing is also good. Keep putting words on the page. — © Anne Enright
The way to write a book is to actually write a book. A pen is useful, typing is also good. Keep putting words on the page.
The only way to write a book, I’m fond of telling people, is to actually write a book. That’s how you write a book.
WIDE, the margin between carte blanche and the white page. Nevertheless it is not in the margin that you can find me, but in the yet whiter one that separates the word-strewn sheet from the transparent, the written page from the one to be written in the infinite space where the eye turns back to the eye, and the hand to the pen, where all we write is erased, even as you write it. For the book imperceptibly takes shape within the book we will never finish. There is my desert.
You have to surrender to your mediocrity, and just write. Because it's hard, really hard, to write even a crappy book. But it's better to write a book that kind of sucks rather than no book at all, as you wait around to magically become Faulkner. No one is going to write your book for you and you can't write anybody's book but your own.
It's always a better choice to write a new book than it is to keep pounding your head against the submissions wall with a book that's just not happening. The next book you write could be the book, the one that isn't a fight to get representation for at all.
The way I write is this: I write about a thousand words a day, a little bit more. The next morning, I read those thousand words and cursorily edit that. Then I write the next thousand. I do that all the way to the end of the book and then I reread the book quite a few times, editing as go through.
The best way to learn to write is to read in the genre you might be interested in; then, you need to actually sit down and write. In a lot of cases, the first book you write will not get published. Do not get hung up on that. Start a second book.
When I write a book, I write very cleanly from page one to the last page. I hardly ever write out of sequence.
I think, for me, there's The Book I Should Write and The Book I Wanted to Write - and they weren't the same book. The Book I Should Write should be realistic, since I studied English Lit. It should be cultural. It should reflect where I am today. The Book I Wanted to Write would probably include flying women, magic, and all of that.
Technology must remain a tool. It's a great tool, but technology is the pen to write the book. It's not the book. If you have a great pen, maybe you'll write faster or it will look better, but at the end, you have something to say, or you don't.
Work. Write. Read. Keep putting words on the page, because that's the only way you'll get better.
The turning point was when I hit my 30th birthday. I thought, if really want to write, it's time to start. I picked up the book How to Write a Novel in 90 Days. The author said to just write three pages a day, and I figured, I can do this. I never got past Page 3 of that book.
'Say Her Name' was a book I never wanted to write and never expected to write. I wasn't trying to do anything except write a book for Aura - a book that I thought I had to write.
Which is a wonderful irony, I have property there. I go back every chance I get. One of the main reasons I actually wrote the book, agreed to write it having never wanted to do that in my life, very intimidating by the way to write a book.
If you write a page a day in couple months you have a good chunk of the book and then after a year you have almost a book. It's not that...hard.
My main piece of advice would be don't worry about being published - just write a really good book, but also don't be afraid to write a bad book. Give yourself permission to fail, and don't be afraid.
Usually a feeling of disappointment follows the book, because what I hoped to write is not what I actually accomplished. However, it becomes a motivation to write the next book.
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