A Quote by Joyce Carol Oates
When writing goes painfully, when it’s hideously difficult, and one feels real despair (ah, the despair, silly as it is, is real!)–then naturally one ought to continue with the work; it would be cowardly to retreat. But when writing goes smoothly–why then one certainly should keep on working, since it would be stupid to stop. Consequently one is always writing or should be writing.
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Writing is so... I don't know, it's such a practice, and I feel very unpracticed in it, because I'm not doing it every day. And I really need to do it every day. In other words, you spend all this time writing a movie, and then you stop, and then you're shooting the movie, and then you're cutting, and a year and a half goes by, because in the editing room, you're not writing.
Writing and the hope of writing pulls me back from the edges of despair. I believe insanity and despair are at times one and the same.
I don't know if I ever would have developed into a good actor, but that got completely scotched when I lost my vocal cord at 14 in the operation. But writing always - writing plays, writing, writing, writing, that was what I wanted to do.
I don't understand why one should be one thing or the other. Writing, to me, is writing is writing. It should be a flexible tool. Whatever skills I have, have to work for me; I won't be dictated by them.
I have a hard time writing. Most writers have a hard time writing. I have a harder time than most because I'm lazier than most. [...] The other problem I have is fear of writing. The act of writing puts you in confrontation with yourself, which is why I think writers assiduously avoid writing. [...] Not writing is more of a psychological problem than a writing problem. All the time I'm not writing I feel like a criminal. [...] It's horrible to feel felonious every second of the day. Especially when it goes on for years. It's much more relaxing actually to work.
All my writing-life people kept telling me that I should stop writing short stories and start writing novels: my agent, my Israeli publisher, my foreign ones, my bank manager - they all felt and keep feeling that I'm doing something wrong here.
I do like writing. When I was a little kid, I used to love writing funny, silly stories - and my mom would always encourage it. I don't know why I ever stopped!
we should write because writing brings clarity and passion to the act of living. writing is sensual, experiential, grounding. we should write because writing is good for the soul. we should write because writing yields us a body of work, a felt path through the world we live in.
All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don't get plumber's block, and doctors don't get doctor's block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it?
I was writing blogs before work, then I was writing at work, and then I started writing books on the weekend because you just have that sort of energy in your 20s; it's wonderful.
I hate being called lazy, so when everybody gets up at half seven in the morning, I'm up at the same time. Everyone goes to work and I'll do a few hours of writing, then I'll mess about for a bit and come back to it. By the time I go home I'm done. I think it's really good to keep that kind of a routine with writing. I find that when I don't do that, it's really hard to get back into that headspace of writing.
I had at some point the epiphany that if I wanted to be a writer, maybe I should stop thinking about writing, or stop writing about writing, and actually write.
It had helped to keep her sane, that writing. Then, when time had begun again and real people had entered it, she'd abandoned it here. Now it's a whisper from the past. Is that what writing amounts to? The voice your ghost would have, if it had a voice?
People who've written about Abraham Lincoln's writing emphasize how logical he was. His writing was a syllogistic tool. He would say, if A, then B, and he would reason through it. His late writing especially is so tight and so beautifully reasoned.
When I'm writing a novel or doing other serious writing work, I do it on a schedule that dictates writing either 2,000 words a day or writing until noon. After I hit whichever mark comes first, then I can give my attention to everything else I have to do.
If you have to find devices to coax yourself to stay focused on writing, perhaps you should not be writing what you're writing. And if this lack of motivation is a constant problem, perhaps writing is not your forte. I mean, what is the problem? If writing bores you, that is pretty fatal. If that is not the case, but you find that it is hard going and it just doesn't flow, well, what did you expect? It is work; art is work.
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