That 'writers write' is meant to be self-evident. People like to say it. I find it is hardly ever true. Writers drink. Writers rant. Writers phone. Writers sleep. I have met very few writers who write at all.
Let's stop reflexively comparing Chinese writers to Chinese writers, Indian writers to Indian writers, black writers to black writers. Let's focus on the writing itself: the characters, the language, the narrative style.
Lawyers, doctors, plumbers, they all made the money. Writers? Writers starved. Writers suicided. Writers went mad.
I do have the feeling that other writers can't help you with writing. I've gone to writers' conferences and writers' sessions and writers' clinics, and the more I see of them, the more I'm sure it's the wrong direction. It isn't the place where you learn to write.
I went to a mystery writers conference ... and I learned a lot not only from the faculty - and in the faculty we had forensic doctors, detectives, policemen, experts in guns, etc. - but from the questions of the students.
I think the special thing about Python is that it's a writers' commune. The writers are in charge. The writers decide what the material is.
There are good writers and bad writers. It's hard to find writers who really speak to you, but the work is out there.
I feel like the writers that I'm drawn to, the writers that I really cling to, are the writers who seem to be writing out of a desperate act. It's like their writing is part of a survival kit. Those are the writers that I just absolutely cherish and carry with me everywhere I go.
Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.
Without writers, none of the entertainment would exist. It starts with writers. Writers are the most important piece of the entire puzzle.
You're...writing for other writers to an extent-the dead writers whose work you admire, as well as the living writers you like to read.
I try really hard to ask people to take a look at their bookshelves. Are there female writers on it? Gay writers? Writers of color? There should be.
All writers - all beings - are exiles as a matter of course. The certainty about living is that it is a succession of expulsions of whatever carries the life force...All writers are exiles wherever they live and their work is a lifelong journey towards the lost land.
Because all writers are human beings first and writers second, my guess is that any advice for living with a writer is about the same as advice for living with a plumber or a refrigerator salesperson.
I see so many talented writers of color struggling to get their work out to an audience. I know that's the case for all writers - everyone's struggling for attention - but I do think that for writers of color it's harder, and for women it's harder, and for regional writers it's harder, too.
I've met writers who wanted to be writers from the age of six, but I certainly had no feelings like that. It was only in the Philippines when I was about 15 that I started reading books by very contemporary writers of the Beatnik generation.