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Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on.
Sep 10, 2025
To gain your own voice you have to forget about having it heard.
Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.
All you ever really want is a great character and great writing. As an actor, that's the juiciest sandwich you could ever ask for.
Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head.
There's such good writing now on television and I don't see a lot of great writing on films sadly.
When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.
What no wife of a writer can ever understand...is that a writer is working when he's staring out the window.
Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.
I try to leave out the parts readers skip.
Don't look back until you've written an entire draft, just begin each day from the last sentence you wrote the preceeding day. This prevents those cringing feelings, and means that you have a substantial body of work before you get down to the real work which is all in . . . The edit.
We're past the age of heroes and hero kings. ... Most of our lives are basically mundane and dull, and it's up to the writer to find ways to make them interesting.
Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk-away from any open flames-to remind yourself that if you don't write daily, you will get rusty.
The desire to write grows with writing.
It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.
Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day.
To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make.
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it.
That's where everything starts, as an actor: you've gotta have great writing and great character development, and then you have really great materials to work from.
Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.
When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.
Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it's the answer to everything. ... It's the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it's a cactus.
I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.
Nothing teaches great writing like the very best books do. Yet, good teachers often help students cross that bridge, and I have to say that I had a few extraordinary English teachers in high school whom I still credit for their guidance.
After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.
Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.
Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
Blade Runner was the godfather of all these fantastic movies that occur today. What's frustrating is that we're short of really great writing and great ideas. Blade Runner was full of them.
Great writing can be done in biography, history, art.
One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
It's just lovely to be involved in a movie that does go back to the basics - characters and great writing.
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it's 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.
Easy reading is damn hard writing.
Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.
Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.
And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.
There's so many amazing articles coming out all the time and because of the internet circulating great writing - even if the writers don't get paid enough most of the time, unfortunately - but there's never been a more amazing flow of information on all of the issues. I would love to see a revival of what we had against the war in the '60s - we could do thes
The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.
I so admire great writing done quickly, with great detail.
The road to hell is paved with leeks and potatoes
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.
The road to Hell is paved with unbought stuffed dogs.
The road to hell is paved with adverbs.
Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
Like Flannery O'Connor, McCorkle's genius is to give us both philosophical speculation and a riveting narrative filled with unforgettable characters. Great writing, poignancy, humor, wisdom-all are in abundance here. Jill McCorkle is one of the South's greatest writers; she is also one of America's.