Inspiration Quotes - Page 7

Don't you know no one can escape
the power of creatures reaching out
with breath alone?

If you really want to be a writer, nobody can stop you - and if you don't, nobody can help you.

The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shots, bringing down the bird of thought as it flashes by. A writer is a gunner, sometimes waiting in the blind for something to come in, sometimes roaming the countryside hoping to scare something up.

It's often a matter of sitting in front of the computer and worrying. It's what writing comes down to-worrying that things aren't going to work out.

I started out of course with Hemingway when I learned how to write. Until I realized Hemingway doesn't have a sense of humor. He never has anything funny in his stories.

Don’t waste time waiting for inspiration. Begin, and inspiration will find you.

Luck? I don’t know anything about luck. I’ve never banked on it and I’m afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: hard work - and realizing what opportunity is and what isn’t." - Lucille Ball

(W)hat I write when I force myself is generally just as good as what I write when I'm feeling inspired. It's mainly a matter of forcing yourself to write.

... a good idea always attracts other good ideas.

I am writing in the garden. To write as one should of a garden one must write not outside it or merely somewhere near it, but in the garden.

I'm not a big fan of inspiration. I'm too old to sit and wait for the muse to give me a little kiss... I write a lot, and I'm not afraid to make mistakes or to write badly. I can alsways fix something weak and dull. But I can't fix a blank page.

File under "Hard Truths": the creative muse is fiction. If you sit around waiting for the right moment to create, you will die waiting.

All you have to do is put one word after another, and remember how great it feels to be a writer.

Shut up and write.

My circumstances of unrelieved responsibility and permanent distraction necessitated the short story form.

I believe the first draft of a book - even a long one - should take no more than three months…Any longer and - for me, at least - the story begins to take on an odd foreign feel, like a dispatch from the Romanian Department of Public Affairs, or something broadcast on high-band shortwave duiring a period of severe sunspot activity.

I realized that the good stories were affecting the organs of my body in various ways, and the really good ones were stimulating more than one organ. An effective story grabs your gut, tightens your throat, makes your heart race and your lungs pump, brings tears to your eyes or an explosion of laughter to your lips.

I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.

It has been often said that writing is 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration. In my experience, this is true. But, in my opinion, it is useless without that 1 percent. It's like an engine without fuel - can't get anywhere without it. Or like a lighthouse without a light on top - doesn't guide anyone in to home or safe harbor.

Fueled by my inspiration, I ran across the room to steal the cup of coffee the bookshelf had taken prisoner. Lapping the black watery brew like a hyena, I tossed the empty cup aside. I then returned to the chair to continue my divine act of creation. Hot blood swished in my head as my mighty pen stole across the page.