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Neil Gaiman Quotes about Writing - Page 3

All Neil Gaiman Quotes Adventure Age Aliens Art Boundaries Cancer Challenges Change Character Childhood Children Chocolate Choices Comedy Country Culture Dancing Darkness Design Desire Destiny Devil Earth Empathy Evil Failing Falling In Love Fear Feelings Fighting Finding Yourself Football Freedom Of Speech Fun Funeral Future Giving Graduation Growing Up Hate Heart Hell Home House Hurt Identity Imagination Inspirational Inspiring Jesus Journey Joy Killing Kindness Kissing Liars Life Lifetime Literature Losing Loss Love Lucifer Luck Lying Madness Magic Meetings Memories Metaphor Moon Morning Mountain New Year Pain Parting Past Rain Reading Reality Regret Running School Science Fiction Silence Sin Sleep Son Sorrow Soul Storytelling Style Summer Tea Terror Today Tragedy Waiting Wall War Water Wednesday Wine Winning Worry Writing quotes

Suggestions? Put it aside for a few days, or longer, do other things, try not to think about it. Then sit down and read it (printouts are best I find, but that's just me) as if you've never seen it before. Start at the

Suggestions? Put it aside for a few days, or longer, do other things, try not to think about it. Then sit down and read it (printouts are best I find, but that's just me) as if you've never seen it before. Start at the beginning. Scribble on the manuscript as you go if you see anything you want to change. And often, when you get to the end you'll be both enthusiastic about it and know what the next few words are. And you do it all one word at a time.

Writing, Thinking, Trying

The secret to writing is just to write. Write every day. Never stop writing. Write on every surface you see; write on people on the street. When the cops come to arrest you, write on the cops. Write on the police car. Write on the judge. I'm in jail forever now, and the prison cell walls are completely covered with my writing, and I keep writing on the writing I wrote. That's my method.

Wall, Writing, Cells

Great, big, serious novels always get awards. If it's a battle between a great, big, serious novel and a funny novel, the funny novel is doomed.

Funny, Writing, Fate

I started out writing much more science fictiony stuff and writing about science fiction.

Writing, Fiction, Stuff

"Author Neil Gaiman Plays Not My Job". "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" with Peter Sagal, www.npr.org. December 22, 2011.

She decides to make a list of the things that make her happy. She writes 'plum-blossom' at the top of a piece of paper. Then she stares at the paper, unable to think of anything else. Eventually it begins to get dark.

Writing, Dark, Thinking

I don't think it would be fun to write after inhaling art fumes. (What are art fumes?) No, I just make stuff up. It's easier that way.

Art, Fun, Writing

To be a good writer... read a lot and write every day.

Writing, Good Writers

I'd love to write some porn, but I don't know if I have the right engines. When I was a young man and I was tempted to write porn, imaginary parents would appear over my shoulder and read what I was writing; just about the point that I managed to banish the imaginary parents, real children would lean over my shoulder and read what I was writing.

Children, Real, Writing

On the whole, stories don't write themselves.

Writing, Stories, Whole

Neil Gaiman (2010). “Fragile Things”, p.16, Hachette UK

The cartoon me writes the books cartoon people read in the cartoon world, because they need things to read there too.

Book, Writing, People

I decided that I would do my best in the future not to write books just for money. If you didn't get the money then you didn't have anything. If I did the work I was proud of and I didn't get the money, at least I'd have the work.

Book, Writing, Proud

"Make Good Art". Book by Neil Gaiman, 2013.

The ideas aren't that important. Really they aren't. Everyone's got an idea for a book, a movie, a story, a TV series.

Book, Writing, Ideas

We writers – and especially writers for children, but all writers – have an obligation to our readers: it's the obligation to write true things, especially important when we are creating tales of people who do not exist in places that never were – to understand that truth is not in what happens but what it tells us about who we are. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.

Children, Lying, Writing

Neil Gaiman (2016). “The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction”, p.15, HarperCollins

I learned to write by writing.

Writing

Neil Gaiman (2013). “Make Good Art”, p.36, Hachette UK

Somebody said that writers are like otters... Otters, if they do a trick and you give them a fish, the next time they'll do a better trick or a different trick because they'd already done that one. And writers tend to be otters. Most of us get pretty bored doing the same trick. We've done it, so let's do something different.

Writing, Otters, Giving

I started writing when I was about 20, 21 maybe.

Writing, Outkast

Interview with Byron Merritt, www.sffworld.com. October 12, 2006.

The search for the word gets no easier but nobody else is going to write your novel for you.

Writing, Easier, Novel

One word after another. That's the only way that novels get written and, short of elves coming in the night and turning your jumbled notes into Chapter Nine, it's the only way to do it. So keep on keeping on. Write another word and then another.

Writing, Night, Nine

I love writing in longhand. Writing in longhand, I think, is a marvelous thing to do for a writer these days. If you have a notebook and a nice pen you can go off somewhere, you can write that's solar powered. You can drop it or get it wet and pretty much all of your work will continue to be there. If you suddenly decide to look up a word or check a reference you will not look up four hours later, blinking, finding yourself somehow in the middle of an Ebay auction you never had any plans to be part of.

Notebook, Nice, Writing

The best thing about writing fiction is that moment where the story catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes sense and you know what it's about and why you're doing it and what these people are saying and doing, and you get to feel like both the creator and the audience. Everything is suddenly both obvious and surprising ("but of course that's why he was doing that, and that means that...") and it's magic and wonderful and strange.

Mean, Writing, Fire

"Why Write?" by Neil Gaiman, journal.neilgaiman.com. October 15, 2007.

On the whole, anything that gets you writing and keeps you writing is a good thing. Anything that stops you writing is a bad thing.

Writing, Good Things, Whole

I was always aware, reading Chesterton, that there was someone writing this who rejoiced in words, who deployed them on the page as an artist deploys his paints upon his palette. Behind every Chesterton sentence there was someone painting with words, and it seemed to me that at the end of any particularly good sentence or any perfectly-put paradox, you could hear the author, somewhere behind the scenes, giggling with delight.

Reading, Writing, Artist

Neil Gaiman (2016). “The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction”, p.28, HarperCollins

Sometimes an old idea gets relegated to the back of the line in the mad delight of a new idea, one you've never had before, and that you write fast in the thrill of the new. No rules. Just stories, and you tell as many of them as you can.

Writing, Ideas, Mad

As for thinking time versus writing time, well, that's up to you. But - and I wish it were otherwise - books don't get written by thinking about them, they get written by writing them. And that's when you make discoveries about what you're writing. That's when you get the happy accidents.

Book, Writing, Thinking

I want to write a play. I'd like to do an original musical. I should probably put together a poetry collection.

Writing, Play, Musical

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