24th June 2016 | for Creatives | writing, KEEP CREATING, Jonathan Maberry, writer's block, inspiration/the muse, the creative life |
"Stop mythologizing the life of a writer. Don't wait for the muse to whisper in your ear. Don't cultivate an affected personality. Put your butt in a chair and write. A writer is no different than a plumber, a landscaper or a dental hygienist. We are doing what we are called to do and what we are suited for. You don't need to escape to a cabin and write in a parchment diary with a special pen. Sit at a Starbucks or at home or in the middle of traffic and just write."
"Don't buy into the myth of writer's block. Nearly every person I've ever met who swears to be stalled by it is actually encountering one of two common problems. More often 'writer's block' is a result of writers trying too hard to write a perfect novel in the first draft. Nobody—no-freaking-body—writes a perfect first draft."
"You have to write when you're not 'inspired.' ...And the weird thing is that six months later, or a year later, you're going to look back and you're not going to remember which scenes you wrote when you were inspired and which scenes you wrote because they had to be written."
"I don't believe in inspiration. I believe that you sit at your desk, and you push your pencil around, and you feel lousy about yourself for a while, and eventually, you just start writing. Everyone I know who's lucky in this business is lucky because they're working really hard, and then good stuff happens."
"You've got to go, 'No, I can't come into work on the weekends—[that's] when I work on my novel.' ... People deserve those dreams, and they have to fight for them. You don't want to be at the end of your life and go, 'I met all the obligations people had for me.'"
"Writing is not about the muse, or the writer's soul—it's about getting words on paper every day, whether a few words or a few pages."
Don't miss a single, riveting word! Be the first to hear of new releases, special promotions, and other news and nifty things...