Writers on Writing

"Not long ago, a woman sitting next to me on a plane asked if I had a trick for getting past writer's block, and I replied, 'Yes. It's called a mortgage.'"
—Laura Miller

"If you are destined to become a writer, you can't help it. If you can help it, you aren't destined to become a writer. The frustrations and disappointments, not even to mention the unspeakable loneliness, are too unbearable for anyone who doesn't have a deep sense of being unable to avoid writing."
—Donald Harington

"I had to confess that I do think about an audience, and I don't think that's so bad," she said. "I'm a reader, and so I know what it's like. That power—I wanted it so badly."
—Jaimy Gordon, author of the National Book Award winner Lord of Misrule, in the New York Times

"Writing a novel is kind of like picking up the end of a piece of string and following it. In real life, the pieces of string are quite short."
—Donald Westlake