A Quote by J.R. Ward

The stories just keep showing up in my head - and I really hope they keep it up! I write what I'm told, and as long as I do that, I don't have any problems with writer's block or anything. The issues come only when I try to force the story or the people in it to do things they don't want to. As a control freak, it's funny that I've learned to be so comfortable with being out of control in what is arguably one of the most important areas of my life!
A lot of things are going to happen that you can't necessarily control all the time, but you can control what you do after it happens. So that's what I try to do, keep my head up, keep moving forward, stay positive and just work hard.
I learned that you really don't have any control as a writer. Waah, waah, waah. Big deal. Unless you're the director on the movie, or putting up the money for the movie, you really don't have a lot of control. As someone who's just writing scripts, you just kind of have to shrug. I have no problems or issues with screenwriting in general. It is what it is.
So often with beginning writers, the story that they want to start with is the most important story of their life - my molestation, my this, my horrible drug addiction - they want to tell that most important story, and they don't have the skills to tell it yet, so it ends up becoming a comedy. A powerful story told poorly becomes funny, it just makes people laugh behind their hands.
I think one of the problems with being a fiction writer these days is that you can't keep up with the headlines. Things that people would say are absurd occur the next day or they come out of somebody's mouth. There are days I just wanna give up.
Don't force things to happen. You can work towards things and keep yourself open to things, people, and opportunities, but you can't and shouldn't try to control everything. Also, if you haven't noticed so far, I think sleep is really important.
In old interviews I was still worried about being judged. I think my life was about how can I keep myself in control. How can I just get through this and be okay? And, you know, you turn the corner. You realize that you're not imprisoned by your life or your circumstances or your genetics or anything. I really believe that we all have the ability to come out of our story. But you have to tell your story first in order to come out of it.
Once you lose attachment to how you want things to be because you realize you don't control anything, there's a curiously liberating aspect of that. I've always been a control freak, I've always felt that if I try hard enough, everyone I love will be kept safe and everything will be okay. Being shown, in such brutal terms, that that's simply not the way it works, in someways, it messed me up. I've been through hell, but on another level, if you pile up so much tragedy, it either destroys you, or you just start laughing about it. Because at the end of the day, no one gets out alive.
I really want to write another novel, and I am trying to come up with what the story will be. As I learned with 'Groundswell,' I can't force it; I just have to wait for it to come to me.
If I am forced to come up with organizing tips, I use my iPhone and I have my to-do list that I keep there, and I try to go in weekly and have at it. I am never going to get through that entire list, so I have to weekly, as I check in, push up the priority and the three or four things that I absolutely have to get done, and constantly reorder the list. If anything, I feel like I have gotten more comfortable with that fact: knowing that what is really, truly important will get done and then being comfortable when other things fall by the wayside.
My mother taught me to focus on being myself and not to worry what other people think about you. I know that as long as I'm a good person I'll stay on the right path. From my dad I learned that when someone tells you “No” it's only the beginning of a conversation. They both have always let me know that I can do anything I want to do as long as I don't give up. They are the most important role models in my life because they are exactly who I want to be when I grow up. They are supportive and understanding and I try every day to remember what they've taught me.
People were touchingly naive at the dawn of the Internet revolution when they said the Internet will route around censorship the way it routes around damage. With any revolution, the establishment catches up and figures out how to screw it up. The answer is to keep technology advancing fast enough so that those who would try to control it can't. It's up to people to defend what they care about. We shouldn't be complacent that this stuff is going to be a force for good.
For a long time growing up, I thought that everything happens for a reason and it's kind of already written. But as I've grown and learned various things, I think that the most important moment is the one that you're in, and that's the only moment that matters, that you can really control. The future is unknown, and the past is history.
But in life people come and go. We don't always have control over it. But we can control how we respond. We can keep going, keep living the best we can. We can love the people we have instead of shutting them out. We can do our best to get to know them in the time we have.
Things you never thought were going to turn into something end up being the most important things in your life. You have to learn to not try to control it.
You only live once, life is really short.. don't let anything minuscule like that keep you down. Keep your head up.
I learned a lot from the stories my uncle, aunts, and grandparents told me: that no one is perfect but most people are good; that people can't be judged only by their worst or weakest moments; that harsh judgements make hypocrites of us all; that a lot of life is just showing up and hanging on; that laughter is often the best, and sometimes only response to pain.
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