Zest for the Rest

Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.

Stephen King (via writingquotes)

(via scribnerbooks)

Writing’s a lot like cooking. Sometimes the cake won’t rise, no matter what you do, and every now and again the cake tastes better than you ever could have dreamed it would.

Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things (via excessivebookshelf)

(via thesearepeopleyouknow)

A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter. I feel no obligation to deal with politics. I do feel a responsibility to society because of going into print: a writer has the duty to be good, not lousy; true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down. Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.

E. B. White (via papercrushed)

apoetreflects:

“Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything”

—Eugène Delacroix

I try to go there in my writing. I make myself uncomfortable. When I feel nauseous, or disgusted with myself I think, “Now I am getting somewhere.” Life is pretty cruel so I like writing about both the petty and more significant cruelties we have to face. Is it uncomfortable? Yes. But so is life. It is important for writing to take chances and push boundaries, not all the time, but when it serves the story best. That’s all I am ever trying to do.

Roxane Gay, in a must-read interview over on Paper Darts (via nouvellabooks)

(via wordpainting)

Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don’t cheat with it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist—but don’t think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you.

Hemingway to Fitzgerald (via writethatshitdown)

(Source: lettersofnote.com, via twcwelcomecenter)