Five Great Quotations about the Writing Process

“The writer’s silent mind is a period of intermission before orchestrating a symphony of words.” – Khaled Talib

“…don’t wait for inspiration, just start the damned thing…once you begin, keep on until the end. How do you know how the story should begin until you find out where it’s going?” – Roger Ebert

“When you write, it’s like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring them unity. Your fingers have still not perfected the task. Some of the braids are long, others are short. Some are thick, others are thin. Some are heavy. Others are light. Like the diverse women of your family. Those whose fables and metaphors, whose similes and soliloquies, whose diction and je ne sais quoi daily slip into your survival soup, by way of their fingers.” – Edwidge Danticat

“…you always have this image of the perfect thing which you can never achieve, but which you never stop trying to achieve. But I think…that’s your signpost and your guide. You’ll never get there, but without it you won’t get anywhere.” – Cormac McCarthy

“The best thing to do is to loosen my grip on my pen and let it go wandering about until it finds an entrance. There must be one – everything depends on the circumstances, a rule applicable as much to literary style as to life. Each word tugs another one along, one idea another, and that is how books, governments and revolutions are made – some even say that is how Nature created her species.” – Machado de Assis

• Follow a “process” when writing your story

• The “thinking step” when writing your book

• Drafting: Write on paper or type on computer? 

• Draft rarely perfect after first go-round
After you’ve brainstormed some ideas and made an outline of how you might organize those thoughts into a story or nonfiction piece, the next step is get busy “drafting.”

• A finished draft beats a perfect draft

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

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