Sometimes I need to be reminded that I am not the only person who can find it difficult to do the writing I want to do. It’s too easy to feel blocked, or that there is something else I should be doing, or that I just don’t feel like it. At times like these, I find it helpful to read a few words by established authors who talk about their own writing process. So I have collected a few quotations which keep me inspired. I’d like to share a few with you:
‘And I must forget even that I want it to be good. Such things belong only in the planning stage. Once it starts, it should not have any intention save only to be written.’ – John Steinbeck
‘It wasn’t the result but the experience that hooked me: it was the electricity. My transition from not being a writer to being one was instantaneous, like the change from docile bank clerk to fanged monster in “B” movies.’ – Margaret Atwood
‘You cant wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.’ – Jack London
‘Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.’ – Gloria Steinem
‘There is only one single way. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write. This above all – ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night: MUST I write?’ – Rainier Maria Rilke
‘When I create I am true, and I want to find the strength to build my life wholly upon this truth, upon this infinite simplicity and joy that is sometimes given me.’ – Rainier Maria Rilke
‘Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.’ – Ray Bradbury
‘You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.’ – Madeleine L’Engel