"All the time I'm not writing I feel like a criminal. It's horrible to feel felonious every second of the day. It's much more relaxing to actually write."

"We all get rejected and criticized at every stage.  Feel the hurt and let it go."

"If you do want to get into creative work, you’re going to have to see it as a side hustle. Not your main gig. That’s just the way it is.  It could become your main gig — if you’re very, very lucky — but the chances are slim. It’s hard to make it work."

"When the thrill of creation is its own reward, we are more inclined to create something lasting and meaningful."

"Writing is often balanced with dozens of other obligations. Like working, cooking, cleaning, exercising, and picking up the kids from school. Nobody has the time to dedicate an entire day to just this activity. ... There is a popular misconception that successful writers have more time than the average person. That the only reason they do well is because they can spend hours each day on their books. That they don’t have to worry about pesky chores and errands like everyone else."

"Results [of the writing life] vary. Side effects range from obscurity to the Nobel Prize."

"With creative people strongly gifted ... [your natural self] is very prominent, no matter what you do. It therefore strongly resents any basically meaningless constraints placed about its experience. It knows, for example, how to enjoy each day, how to collect creative insights from each and every encounter, how to enrich itself physically through household chores or other activities. It dislikes being told that it must work thus and so at command of unreasonable restraints."

"When you do get to create something, and you put it out for the world to see, if it’s free you’ll get a bunch of people who hate it, and if it’s not you’ll be called money hungry."

"I feel so grateful that I am an artist, that I have an art form with which to live my life and make sense of it—to start in morass and write through to clarity time and time and time again."

"Reading at meals is considered rude in polite society, but if you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects. If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway."

"You do not say to the creative self, 'Now it is 7:30. People are at their assembly lines. I am at my desk: produce.'"

"The thing is, it's hard to do great creative work at the end of the day when you're tired and worn down by trying to make a living in a day job, in a business that you've founded to bring in income etc."

"I have learned, on my journeys, that if I let a day go by without writing, I grow uneasy.  Two days and I am in tremor.  Three and I suspect lunacy.  Four and I might as well be a hog, suffering the flux in a wallow.  An hour's writing is tonic.  I'm on my feet, running in circles, and yelling for a clean pair of spats."

"Write often enough that you don't lose your rhythm or forget what you're up to.  That might mean writing every other day.  Or only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  If you're thinking about your work and reading a lot during that in-between time, it can help make those less-than-every-day writing sessions as productive as an every-day 'Must-Do!' writing routine (which can start to feel like drudgery pretty darn fast)."

"The antidote to fear is to continually, one day at a time, stay out of the result and place ourselves squarely in the process."

"[Writing] akes a long time.  There is no rushing it, and the work exists on its own timetable, outside of your own personal deadlines."

"What loafing does for my creative process: I get many of my brainstorms when I'm doing something totally unrelated to the diligence of the butt-in-chair calcified advice that many new writers receive."

"The bulk of your writing should focus on genres or niches that you enjoy. Sure, there will be times when you write to pay the bills, but spend most of your days on exciting projects."

"We should always be changing and inspired by new things."

"Write when you want to write. Write when you don't want to write. Write when the sun is shining and when it rains. Don't write when the tornado's on the way. Take shelter."

"Trying to fit the great thrust of creativity into assembly-line time is in itself bound to lead to conflicts, dissatisfactions, and frustrations."

"Writing allows just the proper recipes of truth, life, reality as you are able to eat, drink, and digest without hyperventilating and flopping like a dead fish in your bed."

"Let me tell you, people spend a lot less on writing than they do on music. How does a writer live, on the money we're talking right now?"

"People Are Going To Steal Your Book: The current generation is used to open access, not restricted ownership. Someone is going to gank your book. They're gonna gank the unmerciful fuck out of it. And you're either going to be mad about it and flail or you're going to find a way to deal and, in a perfect world, make it work for you."

"There's a cycle in science fiction that most writers follow. They break into the field by selling short stories and novelettes to the magazines until their names and styles become familiar to book editors. Then they sign a few book contracts, get some novels under their belts, and suddenly they don't have time for those $400 stories anymore. The magazines that nurtured them and gave them their starts watch as the novels flow and the short fiction trickles in. So the magazines are forced to search constantly for new talent."

"You feel very alive constantly being one decision away from disaster."

"Everyone works differently.  I'm sure for new writers, it's frustrating to hear the answer to the 'How do you do it?' questions is that everyone works differently.  But I also take comfort from that.  You've got to find what works for you."

"We tell the story we want to tell, and we live out those stories every day."

"I'm a strong believer that creativity is the ability to play."

"Good fiction is not trying to imitate life or trying to reproduce what's going on in life.  Life serves as a catalyst, as a provocation that leads to something fictional that's interesting.  It creates a new world that has its own constraints, its own rules, and its own system that can really be intersting in and of itself.  It can also come back and teach us something about life.  There is a constantly circulating movement in the interchange between life and fiction."

"I always urge young writers who feel the pressure to produce to spend more time browsing bookstores.  I urge them to check how many books any writer tends to have on the shelf.  Ours is a culture where it's lucky for a writer to be remembered for even one book, less three or four."

"It's OK to go into hibernation sometimes.  Your friends will understand.  Your freelance gigs will understand.  You're writing a book, you don't need to feel like, 'if I can't balance everything, I'm not good enough."

"Stay curious, look for inspiration in everything, and write it down.  You never know when you have a seed that you'll come back to."

"Don't be pretentious about your writing habits. Don't tell yourself that you'll only write on days when you have three uninterrupted hours to devote to the enterprise. Grab any half-hour you can."

"'You should write every day': that's a terrific idea... in theory.  I should also swim 20 laps every day, mow my lawn twice a month, and grade student papers the moment they're turned in.  But like you, I'm busy and don't do all the things I ought to do when I 'should' do them.  I accept that."

"Writing is like having a baby. If you wait until you can afford to spare the time, you'll never do it."

"[You] tried to use an assembly-line kind of time for your creative productivity. This may work when manuscripts are being typed, and so much physical labor is involved, but overall you are using the 'wrong' approach to time, particularly for any creative artist."

"Artists are not intellectuals.  We are sensualists, we are ravenous for life."

"An idea I was exposed to in art school: it's adamant that you enjoy the process more than the end product.  And that rule applies to all the arts, because we're fickle people."

"I sit down maybe at quarter past eight in the morning and I work until quarter to twelve and for that period of time, everything is real. And then it just clicks off. I think I probably write about twelve hundred to fifteen hundred words. It's six pages. I want to get six pages into hard copy."

"I can spend weeks without mentioning to anyone that I'm a writer.  I'm a minority these days, but I'm not certain it's a good thing for writers to spend a lot of time with other writers.  Solidarity and community are essential—I am not arguing against either—but when the majority of your friends are writers ... that seems to work for a lot of people, but that shit's just not for me."

"You're very fortunate if you have a partner who understands what you do and who works with you through the struggle of making and wanting to make."

"I'm constantly taking risks to move forward.  I believe that you have to go for what you want and figure the rest out later.  That's a good way of looking at the world: do what you feel is the best thing to move you forward, and don't let potential future pitfalls hold you back.  You can cross those bridges when you get there—everything will work itself out."

"It's easy to be fooled into thinking there's a magic program, a specific path that only others know about, or a unique but mysterious road that you should take with a set number of steps to reach your dreams.  Nonsense.  You decide when.  You decide how."

"Expression is a necessity of life. ... Each person feels that drive."

"That doesn't mean I'll just do whatever it takes to be paid. Especially not something like abandoning my professional standards, because that would throw the rest of my life out of balance."

"The Art Spirit that sort of became my Bible, because that book made the rules for the art life.  It was one of those things that is so fantastic, because it sets you on your way."

"When I drew, I lost myself in it and stopped thinking about everything else; it was like creating another world for myself, a world with the things I wanted to see and do.  Thank God I had that."

"People don't want to pay for content. They want to consume it for free, or monetise it for themselves. There's never been a greater sense of people feeling entitled to your creative work than there is right now.  And in that entitlement, respect for creative work is vanishing."

"Although technology saves us time, it takes away mental space. Back when we had to do more tasks by hand, these tasks took longer to do, and while we did them, we had more time to think, daydream, or not-think."

"Plan for the long haul.  If you're extremely talented and lucky, you'll be famous in a few years.  Most of us, including me, are neither that talented nor lucky."

"I think it's probably good to believe whatever will encourage you to write."

"Sitting and writing, even on the awful days, is just a glorious thing to be able to do."

"People think it's a pipe dream to be an artist for a living, and proving them wrong has been the biggest motivation for me."

"The most successful writers complete their words first thing in the morning. Sure, some work late in the evening or when they can find the time. But if you study the habits of professional authors, you'll see that most of them get up early and complete their words before the afternoon.  It's actually not that hard to write thousands of words on a daily basis. The trick is to follow a routine full of habits that reinforce this goal."

"Throw away your television. ... Okay, don't throw away your television. You'll miss it when the tornado's on the way. But, at least, like, unsubscribe from premium cable. ... No, seriously, step away from the remote. You'll never know how much free time you actually have until you give up TV. ... Don't even. If you're watching Game of Thrones, you have time to write. ... Okay, so there are some really good shows on HBO, especially The Wire, but you really, really have to be careful. ... Okay, Six Feet Under as well, but, seriously, that's it. And no more than one episode per day. ... Better yet, do throw away your television."

"The [creative] work I'm doing now, and the work I will do, is why I left corporate America.  If I can't remember to embrace the craziness with a smile, then I've made a terrible mistake."

"There's nothing for it but to use one's abilities full blast in every area—and that that resolve and action will conquer all and set [one] free—physically, creatively, and mentally."

"I read a book called Quitter by Jon Acuff.  In it, he encourages people not to bail on their full-time jobs as soon as they feel like their dream is gaining some traction.  These were wise words that I needed to hear.  A full-time job provides stability so that you can take more risks on your dream.  In our culture, we're prone to demonize our day jobs and exalt our dream jobs, but we fail to see that the former can be a platform for the latter.  In his book, Acuff explains that the word no is the most valuable word you have as someone working toward your dream."

"How does one get lost?  Through incorrect aims, as I have said.  Through wanting literary fame too quickly.  From wanting money too soon.  If only we could remember, fame and money are gifts given us only after we have gifted the world with our best, our lonely, our individual truths."

"That's the case for most content creators. Film makers. Artists. Writers. Musicians. We've made it easier than ever to make stuff, and harder than ever to make enough money to live."

"You need to write. This seems axiomatic because it is. The only way to amass a pile of words into a book is to shovel some every single day. No days off. You have to form this habit; without it you are screwed. I'm going to assume [you] already have this down. If you don't—you won't make it." 

"We're basically abolishing the full time musician/writer/filmmaker. We're abolishing the full time creative. That's what's happening.  We're giving money to tech platforms to become 'Unicorns' off the backs of creatives, and driving creatives out of business."

"Self-publishing is not easier, as you will find yourself mucking about in covers and copyediting and distribution and marketing for more hours than you spend writing—and when you publish traditionally you find yourself losing a lot of control over your work timelines and visions for the book's marketing."

"I made a decision that forever changed my life. Instead of finding time to write, I made the commitment to get up in the morning and complete my words before doing anything else."

"I now have a better understanding of how to communicate my ideas, but I still struggle every single day.  As soon as I stop struggling, I'll be dead."

"There is a lot of talk in creative fields about separating those who are creative and make things from all the other people, but that's fucking bullshit.  I don't think you can be a good designer if you don't have a business sense; I don't think you can be a good director if you don't have a sense of production.  I think it's all a part of the job and, frankly, we all have the capacity for creative output."

"Understand that, from this point forward, in order to be successful in any one area of your life, you will need to neglect one or more other areas of your life. This means that, at all times, you will be either a bad parent, a bad writer, or a bad employee. Get used to being one of these things.  The trick is to make sure you're not being all three of these things all at once."

"Expression, rather than repression, is vital."

"DON'T THINK.  Which results in more relaxation and more unthinkingness and greater creativity."

"Sometimes the contrast helps: when you come home from your day job, you have so much to pour into your passion because you've been holding in your creativity all day."

"Bestselling author Jeff Pearlman tells new acquaintances that he's a plumber.  'Because when you say you're a writer, they either think you're some schlub on a couch, or they tell you about a friend's daughter's sister who's also a writer, and she's had some success at fill-in-the-blank.'"

"I don't think in terms of 'success' so much anymore.  Because I know how things can happen: You can have success, and then it can be taken away from you.  Then you can have it again.  So I just really focus more on the work.  I love to write, and that's what I'm going to keep on doing, no matter if I'm published again (or not published again)."

"Being creatively satisfied means that you possess the faith that as you connect the dots of your inspiration, bridges will form—and yet more dots will appear.  Once you settle into the idea that that can continue forever, then you are satisfied knowing that there will always be something that draws you in, compels you, and drives you to look closer.  There will always be another way to express yourself.  It's a dance that never ends."

"We're never fully satisfied.  Despite being happy with most of my work, I still constantly struggle with those inner demons who tell me it's all junk.  That said, the older I get, the less time I spend worrying about how others receive my work, or even what others are working on."

"Think back to our artisans, arranging their days to their personal satisfaction rather than the demands of the system."

"I rage at the imminent loss of my friend.  And I think, What would Terry do with this anger?  Then I pick up my pen, and I start to write."

"The writer's life is filled with endless unknowns and terminable dreads, but when we acknowledge that the thrill of creation is its own reward, we are the lucky ones."

"Writing fiction, or at least trying to make a living by writing fiction, creates new ways for the writer to experience failure.  At first I was simply writing stories no one liked.  Then, once I got better, I started sending out the good stories to literary journals and getting rejected.  Then, once I started getting acceptances, I began receiving queries from agents who would then tell me I was not 'there' yet.  Then, once I got an agent, a year passed before he told me I was not progressing the way he had hoped, and we agreed to end our relationship.  Once I started writing short stories that were pretty good, everyone told me I really needed to write a novel.  Once I started writing short stories that were pretty good, everyone told me I really needed to write a novel.  Once I wrote a novel, it was rejected by everyone who read it.  Once I got enough publications to start applying for grants and awards, I didn't even come close to receiving any of them.  It was a weird cycle in which, instead of feeling happy I was getting better as a writer, I kept realizing how little I had actually progressed in the ways I started to quantify as success."

"Playing shows has an immediacy that I'm not in control of ...  It took me a long time to enjoy that spontaneity and take chances.  It took me fucking up in front of a lot of people for a long time, and doing that enough times to realize that it doesn't matter: your intent is so much more important than the follow-through."

"Making yourself vulnerable and subjecting yourself to the judgment of others is a risk that you continue to take when you're creative."

"And what, you ask, does writing teach us?  First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that is a gift and a privilege, not a right.  We must earn life once it has been awarded us.  Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation."

"The ongoing professionalization of writing, an outcome of our neoliberal moment, has acted centrifugally on writers, clotting them together in ways that are unprecedented.  I tend to spend more time with readers.  What truly enriches my creative life are folks who do anything other than writing. ... And books, of course.  I don't need much else to inspire me as long as I have books."

"What I consider to be the 'real' life of a modern-day novelist: There will be high points, there will be harsh blows, and you will probably have to teach, consult, or edit to make ends meet.  All you can do is return to the writing, day after day—and never, ever give up."

"Find what you love. Then fight like hell when people try to take it from you."

"Writers often revisit the same themes throughout their careers, examining them from various points of view."

"My ideas drove me to it, you see.  The more I did, the more I wanted to do.  You grow ravenous.  You run fevers.  You know exhilarations.  You can't sleep at night, because your beast-creature ideas want out and turn you in your bed.  It is a grand way to live."

"You don't get sick days. A day you don't work is a day that accumulates nothing toward your needs. You're the hunter, now. You don't hunt? You don't eat."

"Yell.  Jump.  Play.  Out-run those sons-of-bitches.  They'll never live the way you live.  Go do it."

"As a writer, it's important to manage your energy level. The craft we've chosen is amazing, but it's also one of the most sedentary ways to spend your time."

"Time-based work doesn't make as much sense as it once did, as ideas are not 'things' and can't be measured in units. An idea, conceived in just a moment, can have enormous implications. Thus an 'idea person' has a more flexible approach to time. She learns how to develop the special, and often quite eccentric, circumstances that encourage creativity, and to trust inspiration when it appears—no matter what the time. "

"At this moment in my career, after publishing twenty-seven books and at least as many short stories, I still get rejected on a regular basis. Recently I wrote a story that every major magazine rejected. After going to the major presses, I went to the smaller ones. Nobody will publish it—nobody. So don't despair—accepting rejection is part of the job description."

The Great Discontent

Worlds of Wonder

"There are many factors that create a writer and the most significant is need.  I often joke, when talking at literary conferences and events, that if we, the writers, could choose to stop, we would.  For most of us, the need to make sense of and organize life through story, particularly its traumatic moments, was born many years before we penned our first title."

"The time that any artistic creator is involved with follows earth's own time. ... The creator's time rises out of the seasons and the tides, even though in your society you make a great effort to fit the creator's time into ... assembly-line time."

"That's really the best ambition, to be hungry for sensual experience in your life. Ravenous."

"Particularly if you want to make a living at your art, you fall into the frame of mind in which you think that 'each minute is valuable'—but what you mean is that each minute must be a minute of production. But each moment must be valuable in itself, whatever you do with it."

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

"I write three hours every morning. It's the first thing I do, Monday through Sunday, fifty-two weeks a year. Some days I miss but rarely does this happen more than once a month. Writing is a serious enterprise that takes a certain amount of constancy and rigor."

"You wake up fresh, with a full bar of willpower. This is the absolute perfect time to write. ... If you wake up and write, you know it got done. You also know you did your best writing."

"Artists are intensely aware of the chaos implied by the moment-to-moment sensual experience of human beings on this planet. But they also, paradoxically, have an intuition that behind the chaos there is meaning; behind the flux of moment-to-moment experience there is a deep and abiding order. "

The View from the Cheap Seats

"The writing game has a tinge of outlaw culture, which makes writers look where others don't.  It's called 'contrarian thinking.'" (artist)

The Crossroads of Should and Must

"When you follow Must every day, you impact not only what you create for your work, but also who you become in your life. This is how your work and your life become one and the same. When you choose Must, what you create is yourself. It is a body of work. As you change, so too does the work. As you grow, so too does the creation."

"Most of these people have stopped dreaming. They don't share your vision for an amazing future. Life has ground them down to be 'practical'. To get a day job and do what's expected of them. In short, people who can't see it for themselves can't see it in you."

"The first use for propinquity is removing all the little barriers that will keep you from writing. The more of these exist, the less likely you are to write. Many of them are simple, and some so tiny you may doubt that they'll keep you from writing. But they will."

Ray Bradbury - "Telling the Truth"

"Your body and brain are the Story-Engine. Keep them primed to write."

"When you live the fullness of your life, you lift the collective human experience.'

"When you know why you are here—what you were put on this earth to do—it is challenging to go back to life as you knew it and be satisfied."

"The author T.S. Eliot was also a banker. Another writer, Kurt Vonnegut, sold cars. One of the greatest composers of our time, Philip Glass, didn’t earn a living from his calling making music until he was forty-two. Even as his work was premiering at the Met, he worked as a plumber and renewed his taxi license, just in case."

"Inspiration is another name for knowing your job and getting down to it."

"What if who we are and what we do become one and the same? What if our work is so thoroughly autobiographical that we can't parse the product from the person? In this place, job descriptions and titles no longer make sense; we no longer go to work, we are the work."

"It's not what an artist does that counts, but what he is."

"Picasso had incredible talent, but the secret to his genius was this—Picasso’s life blended seamlessly with his work."

"Working on something over a long period gives a sense of richness that you can't fake."

"I type in one place, but I write all over the house."

"Writing is my joy, but not alwasy; much of the time it is my job, and I have to write whether I feel like it or not, whether inspiration strikes or not.  That is how you make a story unfold."

"Novels are built day by day in writing sessions that can be either comfortable or courageous."

"It's a really hard thing to do, day after day, to explore your consciousness and to try to represent it as fully as possible."

"Self-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it acting, writing, painting or living itself, which is the greatest art of all ... creativity, at heart, is the essence of man's being."

"I don't think there's any rule.  I don't write sometimes for months.  Of course, I write emails every day, I write in my diary every day.  I may not touch the manuscript at all, or anything pertaining to it. ... Whether [or not] I hit the keyboard, I'm writing in my head.  I'm working on my books all the time.  I write best in short, intense periods.  A period, say, of three or four months—very intense work.  And then I draw back and I read, and I do other things.  Again, I don't think there's any rule to any of this.  It's the greatest profession because you do it all in your own way."

"As for the overwhelming significance of a single article/book/poem/what-have-you, you can't get bogged down with that.  If you're doing this writing life the right way, you're working on a career, not one title."

"One of the essentials is to create a vacuum in my life which can only be satisfactorily filled by some form of creative work—whether it be writing, painting, sculpting, composing or just building a boat."

"Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you."

"You have to give yourself permission, say to yourself, 'I'm not foolish for wanting this.'  All writers have to fight the same fight.  I have to write 2,000 words today, no matter what.  That's my discipline, and that's me protecting the work."

"Above all, being a successful writer is a good life. You don't have to work at it all the time and you carry your office around in your head. And you are far more aware of the world around you."

"Through writing, through that process, they realize that they become more intelligent, and more honest and more imaginative than they can be in any other part of their life." (artist)

"Anderson says the best thing to do is cut the amount of time you spend on social media and reading blogs about writing and publication by 75%."

"Not treating the actual process preciously removes some of the inhibitions that people put in their path.  Those inhibitions become excuses not to write."

"[Different creative mediums] are just both part of me and so they can't help but feed each other.  Anything that you work on, if you're being honest, shows your personality in it."

"There is so much more to 'being a writer' than putting words to paper.  The process that a writer endures is wholly intensive, an all-consuming effort that can define one's day, week, month, year."

"Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work."

"Whether it's the meaning of life or why the guy killed the old pawnbroker, we're always looking for answers." (artist)

"I'm happiest and most productive when I shut out all the chatter about 'the business' and focus on what I do best: writing."

"Don't romanticize your 'vocation.' You can either write good sentences or you can't. There is no 'writer's lifestyle.' All that matters is what you leave on the page."

"You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it."

"Creativity is how I process the world, but curiosity is the spark that sets it in motion."

"Staying creative for life means remembering (sometimes on a daily basis) your original why: why you write, why writing matters to you.  It means holding onto what's personal and even private in the pursuit, and holding close what's most meaningful."

"I found myself blessing the secret mind... observed when I thought I was sitting this one out.  We never sit anything out.  We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled.  The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out."

"Do what you're best at. Don't make yourself miserable doing what you think you should be doing, do what you enjoy doing.  Utilize your time where it's best spent.  If you have a talent and passion for blogging: Do that.  If you enjoy Twitter and know the ins and outs: Do that.  If you are a great public speaker and love attending writers' conferences: Do that.  There's no one way to promote a book."

"I don't want to live to document my moments. I don't want to see a sunset and reach for my iPhone. I don't want to live my life and love my loves inside out. I fear, sometimes, that I do. I fear for all of us."

"Stories come out of living, and looking, and reacting, and observing and thinking.  I can't explain what the source is. ... That's the experience of being alive and trying to render it coherent somehow."

"To be an artist means never to avert your eyes."

"Stop talking about writing and write.  Stop reading about writing and write."

"Utilize your time well and remember at the end of the day the whims of fate and word of mouth are more powerful than any marketer."

"I want you to envy me my joy. ... Say 'am I being joyful?'" (artist)

"Every minute that you spend writing for free is time that you can't devote to making a living."

"The key to living a creative life is to trust your sense of things, to trust that your output—even a sketch or hastily scribbled poem on the back of an envelope—is worthwhile."

"The main thing for writers and for those who are innovative in different ways is to acknowledge you have a creative process.  Take a moment to lift your head and look at that environment.  The more you can work with it rather than against it, the better."

"The truth remains: writers write, but they must be prepared to do so much more."

"Writing, for me, works best as a daily practice, at least when I'm on a project.  When I'm on a project, it's good to be immersed in it, to return to it, daily."

"Claim your life, own your existence. Write in spite of whatever conflict you face."

"The term 'writer' is almost a misnomer. A carpenter must have a bevy of skills, and cannot succeed on a single one of them. You don't call a carpenter a 'sawman,' or a 'nailer,' or a 'screwdriver jockey.'  A writer must do more than merely write."

"Use that time for writing your novel and for reading great books.  That will make your chances of getting published much stronger than any Facebook post ever will."

"The creative life is very much one where you need to put on blinders and charge forth regardless of what might be out there. You will always find reasons not to do something. It's much harder—and much more valuable—to find the opposite."

"Newsflash: nobody has the time to write a novel except established novelists. And even then you'd be surprised how easily life intrudes."

"I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime.  I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you... Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days.  And out of that love, remake a world."

"When work does not go well, no life is more miserable than that of a writer.  But when it goes go well, when the illumination has focused a work so that it goes limpidly and flows, there is no gladness like it."

"It’s just how most writers are, I suspect: we are the accumulation of words, and our life orbits those words (not vice versa)."

"Writing allows me to control one world. When I'm not doing that, I go off and try to control parts of my own world or other people's lives." (artist)

"The joy of writing has propelled me from day to day and year to year."

"Just unclench, live your life and spend less time berating yourself.  Anxiety and stress are the enemies of creativity."

"It is impossible for me to separate this question [of the most important thing I've learned about writing] from the bigger ones about how to live."

"No matter where you are in your career, whether you're published, unpublished or just starting out, walk through the world as a writer.  That's who you are, and that's what you want to be, and don't take any guff off anybody."

"When it comes to Internet platforms and writing websites, Anderson is blunt with her views, advising writers to replace online surfing with a writing practice."

"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."

"Keep your life orderly, so your imagination can run wild."

"Writing, for me, isn't a job; it's a lifestyle.  So I treat it like that.  I'm not always at the office, but I'm never done."

"Curiosity creates a sort of brain vortex that sucks in whatever you feel most motivated to learn, along with ideas that may be floating around your environment.  The spark of curiosity lights up the hippocampus (where the creation of memories occurs), and the reward and pleasure brain circuits, which release dopamine.  So if you want an alert brain, start your day by immersing yourself in something you find fascinating and mysterious.  Pique your curiosity, enjoy the natural high and learn something new."

"The universe always rewards courage.  The more you move in the direction of what your gifts are, and what your life road is, the more people and events and experiences will conspire to give you what you need.  Write."

"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.'"

"I'm a big fan of telling young writers to take all the detours they possibly can, both in life and in writing.  Those detours are going to lead you to where you need to be.  If someone says, 'How would you like to spend two years working in the Czech Republic for the state department?,' you should do that.  You can always get back to your novel.  You need to have as many experiences as possible."

"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."

"I've learned that writing never gets easy.  When the work is hard (emotionally, intellectually, creatively) you have to work hard (emotionally, intellectually, creatively).  Maybe it's akin to sports: players work forward.  Even a game win yesterday does not mean you don't have practice today and another game tomorrow.  It never gets easy."

"Quite frankly, I'm tired of writers complaining how tough it all is.  Man up.  It's a wonderful and privileged way to live your life.  Embracing difficulty is just part of it all."