Aspiring Writers Quotes:

The short of it is, as an aspiring writer, there is nothing as damaging to your credibility as saying that you don't like to read.

- Khaled Hosseini

topic: Writing, Credibility, Aspiring Writers

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

- Maya Angelou

topic: Inspirational, Moving On, Powerful, Novel Writing, Courage To Change

If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second-greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first-greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they're happy.

- Dorothy Parker

topic: Style, Elements, Favors, Aspiring Writers, Young Writers

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

- Toni Morrison

topic: Inspirational, Happiness, Attitude, Joy Of Reading, Creative Writing

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

- Ernest Hemingway

topic: Writing, Bad Ass, Typewriters, Inspiration To Write, Starting To Write

My advice for aspiring writers is threefold.First, read as much as possible, both within and outside the genre you arem working in. By reading you hone your internal ear for style. Second, write. Everything comes down to it; unless you write, you are not a writer. Third, submit your work. But - stop chasing every seductive new market out there, and stop trying to write for the tastes of specific established professional markets and editors. That way lies mediocrity and eventual dissolution of your true voice, no matter how embryonic or pronounced it may be now.

- Vera Nazarian

source: Source: fantasyworlds.wordpress.com

topic: Lying, Reading, Writing, Aspiring Writers

The easiest way to separate yourself from the unformed blobby mass of "aspiring" writers is to a) actually write and b) actually finish. That's how easy it is to clamber up the ladder to the second echelon. Write. And finish what you write. That's how you break away from the pack and leave the rest of the sickly herd for the hungry wolves of shame and self-doubt. And for all I know, actual wolves.

- Chuck Wendig

topic: Writing, Self, Doubt, Aspiring Writers

When I read students’ attempts at creative writing it is obvious immediately that most of them have not read much or widely. The aspiring writer must read everything he or she can to appreciate the myriad ways words are used and to what effect.

- Julius Lester

topic: Writing, Appreciate, Creative, Aspiring Writers

The most important thing for aspiring writers is for them to give themselves permission to be brave on the page, to write in the presence of fear, to go to those places that you think you can’t write - really that’s exactly what you need to write.

- Cheryl Strayed

topic: Writing, Thinking, Giving, Aspiring Writers

The one thing an aspiring writer must understand is that it's hard. If you think it's not hard, you're not doing it right.

- Gene Weingarten

topic: Writing, Thinking, Aspiring Writers

Tips for aspiring writers: don't be afraid of writing rubbish. It's very easy to become hypnotised by an empty page or screen. It's tempting to abandon a half-finished work because you can't make it perfect. I hereby give you permission to write things that aren't perfect, make mistakes, try things that don't work, experiment with styles you're not used to and generally throw words around. You'll learn much faster that way.

- Frances Hardinge

topic: Mistake, Writing, Giving, Tempting, Finished Work

I'm an aspiring writer. I hate that phrase. You're either a writer or you're not.

- Jack Black

topic: Hate, Writing, Phrases, Aspiring Writers

[M]y first published book had just appeared in stores. The last year of my life-the year of finishing it, editing it, and seeing it through its various page-proof passes-ranks among the most unnerving of my young life. It has not felt good, or freeing. It has felt nerve-shreddingly disquieting. Publication simply allows one that much more to worry about. This cannot be said to aspiring writers often or sternly enough. Whatever they carry within themselves they believe publication cures will not, I can all but guarantee, be cured. You just wind up with new diseases.

- Tom Bissell

topic: Believe, Book, Editing, Aspiring Writers, Finishing It

The only advice I can give to aspiring writers is don't do it unless you're willing to give your whole life to it. Red wine and garlic also helps.

- Jim Harrison

topic: Wine, Giving, Advice, Red Wine, Aspiring Writers

There is no such thing as an "aspiring writer". You are a writer. Period.

- Matthew Reilly

source: Matthew Reilly (2009). “Area 7”, p.573, Pan Macmillan

topic: Writing, Periods, Aspiring Writers

I would also suggest that any aspiring writer begin with short stories. These days, I meet far too many young writers who try to start off with a novel right off, or a trilogy, or even a nine-book series. That's like starting in at rock climbing by tackling Mt. Everest. Short stories help you learn your craft.

- George R. R. Martin

topic: Book, Rocks, Climbing, Mt Everest, Tackling

Fear of failure is the reason most often cited to explain why so many aspiring writers never realize their dreams. But I think it’s that same fear of failure that absolutely invigorates those who do push through-that is, the fear of not being heard.

- Betsy Lerner

source: Betsy Lerner (2016). “The Forest for the Trees: An editor's advice to writers”, p.13, Pan Macmillan

topic: Dream, Thinking, Realizing, Aspiring Writers

I would give them (aspiring writers) the oldest advice in the craft: Read and write. Read a lot. Read new authors and established ones, read people whose work is in the same vein as yours and those whose genre is totally different. You've heard of chain-smokers. Writers, especially beginners, need to be chain-readers. And lastly, write every day. Write about things that get under your skin and keep you up at night.

- Khaled Hosseini

topic: Writing, Night, Giving, Aspiring Writers

I think when you are an aspiring writer, you must write every day. It's not as though anybody will call you up on the phone and say, "I understand you are a very promising, aspiring writer and I'm going to give you this assignment." You have to create it yourself or it's never going to happen.

- Elizabeth Gilbert

source: Goodreads Interview, www.goodreads.com. January, 2010.

topic: Writing, Thinking, Phones, Aspiring Writers

A lot of aspiring writers are all ready to write a novel, but they don't know how to write sentences.

- Tom Robbins

topic: Writing, Novel, Ready, Aspiring Writers

To aspiring writers, I say : Don't give up. Storytelling has been an integral part of the human condition since the beginning of time. Don't let anyone tell you your dreams don't have value. They do.

- Beverly Jenkins

topic: Dream, Giving Up, Don't Give Up, Aspiring Writers

Right now with blogs and the flood of internet access, a multitude of aspiring writers think they're ready for prime time. They're not. Be great. Read. Write. Bust your ass. Learn and find your voice. As hard as you think it is, it's a hundred times harder.

- Steven Pressfield

topic: Writing, Thinking, Voice, Prime Time, Aspiring Writers

It's not easy making a living as a writer, and for many years I worked at a Waterstones in Dublin. It was a good environment for an aspiring writer, with lots of events and authors appearing.

- John Boyne

topic: Years, Events, Dublin, Making A Living, Appearing

I am dismayed to realize that much of the advice I used to parcel out to aspiring writers has passed its sell-by date.

- Susan Orlean

source: "Advice" by Susan Orlean, www.newyorker.com. September 21, 2010.

topic: Advice, Realizing, Used, Aspiring Writers, Parcel

Chekhov used to correspond with aspiring writers, and once he gave this advice to Maxim Gorky when he was encouraging him to pare his wordy sentences: "When someone expends the least amount of motion on a given action, that's grace." The short story, by definition, embodies this notion of grace, because it requires such forceful compression to achieve its effects.

- Catherine Brady

source: Source: therumpus.net

topic: Advice, Grace, Stories, Compression, Aspiring Writers

In college, I think I probably positioned myself as an aspiring writer, meaning I dressed sort of extravagantly and adopted all the semi-Byronic affectations, as if I were writing, although I wasn't actually doing any writing.

- Anthony Bourdain

topic: Writing, College, Thinking, Aspiring Writers

I give this book 5 Stars and highly recommend it to all fiction, nonfiction, and poetry writers, aspiring writers, bloggers or journalists.

- Sunny

topic: Stars, Book, Giving, Aspiring Writers

I see myself much more as a writer/director or at least an aspiring writer/director - not necessarily in film.

- Ricky Gervais

topic: Directors, Film, Aspiring Writers

My advice to aspiring writers of fantasy trilogies or series is that each book needs two main plots. There's the 'big story', the over-arching grand plot of the entire series, and there is the complete-in-itself, one-book plot.

- Juliet Marillier

topic: Book, Two, Advice, Trilogies, Aspiring Writers

I tell aspiring writers that you have to find what you must write. When you find it, you will know, because the subject matter won’t let you go. It’s not enough to write simply because you think it would be neat to be published. You have to be compelled to write. If you’re not, nothing else that you do matters.

- Rick Riordan

source: "Advice For Writers". Q&A, rickriordan.com.

topic: Writing, Thinking, Would Be, Compelled, Aspiring Writers

Well, to aspiring writers, I would tell them that we live in a wonderful time where you're able to make your work visible, easily.

- Diablo Cody

topic: Able, Wonderful, Wells, Rejection Letters, Wonderful Times

About a year after (my stories began being published), magazine editor George Scithers, suggested to me that since I was so new at being published, I must be very close to what I had to learn to move from fooling around with writing to actually producing professional stories. There are a lot of aspiring writers out there who would like to know just that. Write that book.SFWW-I is that book. It's the book I was looking for when I first started writing fiction.

- Barry B. Longyear

topic: Moving, Book, Writing, Fooling Around, Magazine Editors

Like so many aspiring writers who still have boxes of things they've written in their parents' houses, I filled notebooks with half-finished poems and stories and first paragraphs of novels that never got written.

- Ally Carter

topic: Notebook, House, Parent, Aspiring Writers

I think a lot of young aspiring writers get misdirected; they think 'I ought to write this, even though I enjoy reading that'. What you have to do is write what you enjoy reading.

- Jeffery Deaver

topic: Reading, Writing, Thinking, Aspiring Writers

My advice for aspiring writers is go to New York. And if you can’t go to New York, go to the place that represents New York to you, where the standards for writing are high, there are other people who share your dreams, and where you can talk, talk, talk about your interests. Writing books begins in talking about it, like most human projects, and in being close to those who have already done what you propose to do.

- Walter Kirn

topic: Aspiring Writers

Aspiring writers should read the entire canon of literature that precedes them, back to the Greeks, up to the current issue of The Paris Review.

- William Kennedy

topic: Paris, Issues, Greek, Canon, Aspiring Writers

In many ways, a degree in the history of ideas is the ideal training for an aspiring writer.

- Anne Fortier

source: "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Ideas, Training, Degrees, Aspiring Writers

The most important thing for any aspiring writer, is to read! And not just the sort of thing you're trying to write, be that fantasy, SF, comic books, whatever. You need to read everything.

- George R. R. Martin

topic: Book, Writing, Important, Aspiring Writers

I love seeing the light go on in aspiring writers' eyes when you point out ways to improve their prose or their story - when they get it.

- F. Paul Wilson

topic: Eye, Light, Stories, Aspiring Writers, Seeing The Light