As a writer, I never like to give advice on writing because I don’t feel I’ve suffered enough for my art yet. And yes, I know how pretentious that sounds. Hee Hee. But I do listen to the advice of writers who are much better than I am and probably always will be. So, here are my 7 favorite pieces of writing advice from what I consider masters of the written word.
1. “You fail only if you stop writing” ~Ray Bradbury
2. “A writer never finds the time to write. A write makes it. If you don’t have the drive, the discipline, and the desire, then you can have all the talent in the world and you aren’t going to finish a book” ~Nora Roberts
3. “Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself… It’s a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent.” ~ Harper Lee
4. “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” ~ Ernest Hemingway
5. “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” ~ Toni Morrison
6. “Read, read, read. Read everything – trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.” ~William Faulkner
7. “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” ~ Stephen King
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Peggy Jaeger, Author 