Some (Mixed) Advice from Professional Writers

For what they're worth, take a look at some of these thoughts by writers:

I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written. Up in that room I decided that I would write one story about each thing that I knew about. I was trying to do this all the time I was writing, and it was good and severe discipline. [Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast]

The time of the composition is the time of the composition. It has been at times a present thing it has been at times a past thing it has been at times a future thing it has been at times an endeavour at parts or all of these things. In my beginning it was a continuous present a beginning again and again and again and again, it was a series it was a list it was a similarity and everything different it was a distribution and an equilibration. That is all of the time some of the time of the composition.

Now there is still something else the time-sense in the composition. This is what is always a fear a doubt and a judgement and a conviction. The quality in the creation of expression the quality in a composition that makes it go dead just after it has been made is very troublesome. [Gertrude Stein, "Composition as Explanation"]

Literature--creative literature--unconcerned with sex is inconceivable. . . . it is really a matter of tone. You can tell, if you can tell anything, by the way a man talks about sex whether he is impotent or not, and if he talks about nothing else you can be quite sure that he is impotent--physically and as an artist, too. [Gertrude Stein]

If you don't say it in three million words, you aren't likely to say it, are you? Well, I've used up a great many more than three million words, and I still haven't said it. And the reason for that may very well be that it isn't to be said. We write and we read, and it makes a pleasant diversion, but it doesn't mean very much, and it doesn't help. Of course everything helps a little, but not really. The brilliant thing is not to care that it doesn't, and most of the time we are pretty good at that. If we weren't, we would have destroyed ourselves long ago. [William Saroyan, Here Comes, There Goes, You Know Who]

Any man with a vital knowledge of the human psychology ought to have the most profound suspicion of anybody who claims to be an artist, and talks a great deal about art. Art is a right and human thing, like walking or saying one's prayers; but the moment it begins to be talked about very solemnly, a man may be fairly certain that the thing has come into a congestion and a kind of difficulty.

The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs. It is a disease which arises from men not having sufficient power of expression to utter and get rid of the element of art in their being. It is healthful to every sane man to utter the art within him; it is essential to every sane man to get rid of the art within him at all costs. Artists of a large and wholesome vitality get rid of their art easily, as they breathe easily, or perspire easily. But in artists of less force, the thing becomes a pressure, and produces a definite pain, which is called the artistic temperament. Thus, very great artists are able to be ordinary men--men like Shakespeare or Browning. There are many real tragedies of the artistic temperament, tragedies of vanity or violence or fear. But the great tragedy of the artistic temperament is that it cannot produce any art. [G.K. Chesterton, 1874-1936]

. . . . climb a tree occasionally, and hoot like an owl and caw like a crow; stand on your head and yell like a Comanche. The man who does not relax and hoot a few hoots voluntarily, now and then, is in grave danger of hooting hoots and standing on his head for the edification of the pathologist and trained nurse, later on. The madhouse yawns for the person who always does the proper thing. Impropriety, in right proportion, relieves congestion, and thus are the unities preserved. [Elbert Hubbard]

I often can think of nothing to do but pile the books which are on one end of my desk very neatly on the other end and then kick them one by one off on to the floor with my free foot.

. . . all the while my brain is work, work, working, and my plot is taking shape. Sometimes it is the shape of a honeydew melon and sometimes a shape which I have never been quite able to figure out. It is a sort of amorphous thing with two heads but no face. When this shape presents itself, I get right back in bed again. I'm no fool. [Robert Benchely]

The writer who can't distinguish truth from a peanut-butter sandwich can never write good fiction. [John Gardner, The Art of Fiction]

A good and lofty work of art may be incomprehensible, but not to simple, unperverted peasant laborers (all that is highest is understood by them) . . . . " [Leo Tolstoy]

Boozing does not necessarily have to go hand in hand with being a writer, as seems to be the concept in America. [Nelson Algren]

Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal. [Lionel Trilling]

There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. [Somerset Maugham]

I always bring every problem back to chemicals, because I really think that everything starts and finishes with chemicals. [Andy Warhol ]

Don't write the banging-shutter story, the bathtub story, the hobos-in-space story, the I-can-hardly-wait story, the I-cried-because-I-had- no-shoes-till-I-met-a-man-who-had-no-feet story, the-last-line-should-be-the- first-line story; the weird Harold story; the zero-to-zero story; the zero-to- one-hundred story. [Jerome Stern]

Be Bold, be Free, be Truthful. The truthfulness will save it from flamboyance, from pretentiousness. [Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit]

Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency . . . to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate. The "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is worth any number of old ladies. [William Faulkner]

Writing is easy. I just open a vein and bleed. [Red Smith]

To have something to say is a question of sleepless nights and worry and endless ratiocination of a subject--of endless trying to dig out the essential truth, the essential justice. As a first premise you have to develop a conscience. And if on top of that you have talent so much the better. [F. Scott Fitzgerald]

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. [Samuel Johnson]

Why do people always expect authors to answer questions? [Eugene Ionesco]

Why is it . . . that in the broad spectrum of humanity writers should be the meanest, the pettiest, the most jealous, mudslinging, backstabbing, self-centered, conceited people who ever lived? [Ian Frazier, ]

Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
Pla-gi-a-rize! [Tom Lehrer]

I had to grow foul with knowledge, realize the futility of everything, smash everything, grow desperate, then humble, then sponge my self off the slate, as it were, in order to recover my authenticity. I had to arrive at the brink and then take a leap in the dark. [Henry Miller]

You'll know it when you have it, and you will finally be able to depend upon it somewhat. [Katherine Anne Porter]

I put things down on sheets of paper and stuff them in my pockets. When I have enough, I have a book. [John Lennon]

Most writers, you know, are awful sticks to talk with. [Sherwood Anderson]

If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talk about writing or themselves. [Lillian Hellman]

Only ambitious nonentities and hearty mediocrities exhibit their rough drafts. It is like passing around one's sputum. [Vladimir Nabokov]

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