Hello, writer’s block. We meet again. How do I conquer you? How can I ever truly overcome all of your evil, twisted, sinister machinations? Well, I just ignore you. And write other stuff. And then, hopefully, given enough time, the creative juices will start flowing and my writing will take the form of something readable. In the meantime, I will simply acknowledge that we are destined to be locked in immortal combat for years and years to come. And until I finally find a way to destroy you once an for all, let’s look to writerly advice from some of the lucky few who have at least convinced the rest of the world that you are not constantly knocking at their doors, popping up on their computer screens, and running through the streets shouting inappropriate and unflattering “Yo Mama” jokes just to get them off task.
For the sake of actually getting back on task eventually, I’ll limit it to ten. Here they are. Embrace and enjoy!
1. “You don’t write because you want to say something. You write because you have something to say.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”
– Toni Morrison
3. “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.”
– Ernest Hemingway
4. “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
– Oscar Wilde
5. “Make it dark, make it grim, make it tough. But then, for the love of God, tell a joke.”
– Joss Whedon
6. “Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”
– Kurt Vonnegut
7. “You can’t please all of the readers all of the time. You can’t please even some of the readers all of the time. But you really ought to try to please at least some of the readers some of the time.”
– Stephen King
8. “You sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy. And that hard.”
– Neil Gaiman
9. “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”
– Mark Twain
10. “The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”
– Sylvia Plath
So, summing it all up, it’s pretty simple. Do your thing. Try hard. And write cool shit.
