“How do you write? You write, man, you write, that’s how, and you do it the way the old English walnut tree puts forth leaf and fruit every year by the thousands. … If you practice an art faithfully, it will make you wise, and most writers can use a little wising up.” ~ William Saroyan
writer’s block
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Do You Want the Muse to Visit You?
“If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day. The consistency, the monotony, the certainty, all vagaries and passions are covered by this daily reoccurrence. You don’t go to a well once but daily. You don’t skip a child’s breakfast or forget to wake up in the morning. Sleep comes to you each day, and so does the muse.” ~ Walter Mosley
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Why Do You Write?
“I wrote to find beauty and purpose, to know that love is possible and lasting and real, to see day lilies and swimming pools, loyalty and devotion, even though my eyes were closed and all that surrounded me was a darkened room. I wrote because that was who I was at the core, and if I was too damaged to walk around the block, I was lucky all the same. Once I got to my desk, once I started writing, I still believed anything was possible.” ~ Alice Hoffman
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Don’t Compare Yourself
“Know your literary tradition, savor it, steal from it, but when you sit down to write, forget about worshiping greatness and fetishizing masterpieces. If your inner critic continues to plague you with invidious comparisons, scream, ‘Ancestor worship!’ and leave the building.” ~ Allegra Goodman
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Writing What You Know
“”Write what you know. Every guide for the aspiring author advises this. Because I live in a long-settled rural place, I know certain things. I know the feel of a newborn lamb’s damp, tight-curled fleece and the sharp sound a well-bucket chain makes as it scrapes on stone. But more than these material things, I know the feelings that flourish in small communities. And I know other kinds of emotional truths that I believe apply across the centuries.” ~ Geraldine Brooks
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ A Story’s First Line
“But there’s one thing I’m sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.” ~ Stephen King
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ The Purpose of Writing
“Writing . . . is about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.”
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Do You Identify with Your Characters?
“Part of me becomes the characters I’m writing about. I think readers feel like they are there, the way I am, as a result.” ~ Louis Sachar
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Questions to Ask When Writing Fiction
Whether you’re in the stage of elevating a finished draft or staring at a blinking cursor on a blank page, consider how tapping into your own emotional truths can flesh out your characters and plot. Ask yourself:
- When in your life have you felt an acute urgency to act? How can you tap into that memory (sensory details, actions, pacing) to empower a scene?
- When was a moment in your life where you felt extreme [insert the needed emotion here]? How did your view of the world shift as you felt this way? What subtleties of that emotion could be brought to the page in atmosphere, mood, or tone.
- When have you been up against a roadblock, when you’ve been unsure how you would ever get past it? How did you react? What did you do? What was brewing inside you? How can this moment enhance your protagonist’s drive?
~ Kris Spisak
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Words Will Come
“When you have an important story to tell, the words you need seem to come of their own accord.”
~ A. Jance
