3rd July 2016 | for Creatives | writing, Janet Finch |
"Some people write a story. Other people really write. They write the sentence; they give you a gift every line."
"Breaks give your mind a chance to refresh. I write multiple books at once, and I'm always thinking about them, even if I'm not at a computer. It's a habit I picked up as a litigator: You have 1,000 facts in your head, and the most important thing isn't that you know them all- it's that you crystallize them, so that you can present them clearly. Epiphanies don't occur like a spark; they're actually ideas that have been floating around in your brain for a while. By the time I sit down to write, my thoughts are well organized and come out cleanly."
"The most important thing I've learned is to trust my instincts. My professor Kathryn Harrison had this interesting way of putting it, that it's like walking a tightrope, and you're doing it but, the minute you start having doubts or second-guessing yourself—that's when you start to lose your balance. It took me a while to get to a place where I finally did trust my instincts, and it was very liberating. From then on, I felt more confident to take risks in the writing and break the rules, if you will."
"I never really know what something will become when I begin. But once I am inside it, I am completely there."
"The problem is that we view writing as a luxury, something special to allow ourselves as soon as we've taken care of the countless nagging duties that seem to come first. Once you put writing first, the rest of your life will fall into place."
"There are plenty of places that are built on the business model of exploiting writers by not paying them. Are you going to let them do that to you?"
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