A Quote by Sinclair Lewis
Writers kid themselves-about themselves and other people. Take the talk about writing methods. Writing is just work-there's no secret. If you dictate or use a pen or type with your toes-it is just work.
Related Quotes
Writing is just work-there's no secret. If you dictate or use a pen or type or write with your toes-it's still just work.
When I'm writing, especially when I'm writing in first person, I don't think about the characterization, or how they are going to express themselves, I just express my own approach to these things. I think most writers can never divorce themselves from their private lives and personas; they are the ones that are writing. And the more they remove themselves from their own persona, the more, perhaps, mechanical the work becomes.
I like hearing other writers just about the way they approach writing. It gives me energy for my own work. It's weird; I'm always taking notes about fiction when I'm listening to people talk about craft.
Photographers do themselves a disservice by talking too much about the equipment they use. Consequently people don't take them seriously as creators in their own right. When people talk to writers about their work, they ask about their ideas and inspirations. When they talk to photographers, they ask about what cameras or film they use. That's wrong - as wrong as asking a writer what pencil and laptop he uses.
They're fancy talkers about themselves, writers. If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.
Be aware of who in your life is actually interested in hearing you discuss your writing, and who's just asking to be polite. Listening to writers talk about their work is often excruciatingly dull.
If you're going to be a writer, you're going to write because you have to. It's not like other arts and not nearly as rewarding because it's a lot lonelier, and most of the time it's just you alone in a dark room or a coffee shop. But a lot of writers have to write because they're writing for themselves, so whether or not someone sees your work or not- they're still writing because they absolutely have to.
When I'm writing, it's about the page. It's not about the movie. It's not about cinema. It's about the literature of me putting my pen to paper and writing a good page and making it work completely as a document unto itself. That's my first artistic contribution. If I do my job right, by the end of the script, I should be having the thought, 'You know, if I were to just publish this now and not make it . . . I'm done.
That's one thing brands are understanding is, I'm the blogger who's not writing about fashion. I'm not writing about beauty. I'm not writing about gossip. I'm not writing about politics. I'm writing about all of that. I'm the person they can come to if they just want to reach people who care and have their fingers on pop culture.
I never talk about what I'm writing about currently, never. It's private work on your own, no need or obligation to talk about it. Writers are made into performers these days, including myself, but there are some instances in which I will not perform.
People cannot stand the saddest truth I know about the very nature of reading and writing imaginative literature, which is that poetry does not teach us how to talk to other people: it teaches us how to talk to ourselves. What I'm desperately trying to do is to get students to talk to themselves as though they are indeed themselves, and not someone else.
I think all writers are mainly writing for themselves because I believe that most writers are writing based on a need to write. But at the same time, I feel that writers are, of course, writing for their readers, too.
My advice for aspiring writers is go to New York. And if you can’t go to New York, go to the place that represents New York to you, where the standards for writing are high, there are other people who share your dreams, and where you can talk, talk, talk about your interests. Writing books begins in talking about it, like most human projects, and in being close to those who have already done what you propose to do.
A lot of writing about being a mother is not so much writing about the kids themselves. They become placeholders for the shift that happens when you're suddenly in charge of other people.
You learn so much with each book, but it's what you teach yourself by writing your own books and by reading good books written by other people - that's the key. You don't want to worry too much about other people's responses to your work, not during the writing and not after. You just need to read and write, and keep going.
I'm working on poems about work, I guess. Or related to work. Which sounds dull as drywall but I'm having great fun working the vernacular of work into poems. I'm also writing some poems about family. And I don't know, just writing. Taking breaks. Writing some more.
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