Inspiring Writing Quotes to Keep on the Desk
Quotations About Fiction Writing as Habit & Finding the Right Words
Sep 13, 2009
These quotes written by all kinds of fiction writers are great for keeping beside your desk, in a writing notebook or posted in places you'll frequently read them. These inspiring quotes deal with inspiration, writing frequently, finding the right words, knowing what to write about and how to create vivid descriptions.
Quotes About Inspiration, Writing Process and Habit
Having trouble finding the inspiration to write something great? One of these quotes might provide the inspiration or else beg you to form a writing habit instead of waiting for inspiration.
No matter what stage of the writing process you are currently in, even if you haven't started writing yet, these quotes can help channel some of your creativity into quality writing.
"Forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice." ~Octavia Butler
"If you haven't surprised yourself, you haven't written." ~Eudora Welty
"If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." ~Toni Morrison
"Structure is the art that conceals itself—you only see the structure in a badly structured story, and call it formula." ~Stephen Fischer
Quotes About Writing Vivid Descriptions and Using The Right Words
Finding the perfect words to describe something and arranging it all in the perfect order can be difficult, but these quotes not only offer words of help, but they demonstrate excellent wording and descriptions.
"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." ~Anton Chekhov
"The difference between the right word and the almost right word... is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug." ~Mark Twain
"When I was writing Searches and Seizure, I was living in London, and I needed to describe a hotel room. I've been in lots of hotel rooms, of course, but I didn't want to depend on my memory. And so I went to the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington and rented a room, simply to study the furniture there, to feel the glossy top of the wood that is almost not wood, to get the smell of the shower, the textures in the bath, to look at the rhetoric on the cards on top of the television set. This is stuff that I could not invent, and it was important to me to have it down very, very accurately. So I took notes. Somebody watching me would have thought I was a madman." ~Stanley Elkin
"A story isn't about a moment in time, a story is about the moment in time." ~W.D. Wetherell
While finding the perfect word can be stressful and describing a unique or typical scene can become an obstacle course of cliches and trite expressions, remember that you are not the first writer to struggle with these problems and one day another writer could use your work as inspiration.
Quotes by great writers not only provide inspiration but relation and unity between writers dealing with all kinds of situations. Keep a couple of these quotes handy to ease the writer's block and increase production.
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