Octavia Butler’s Advice on Writing. “Write, every day, whether you like it or not. Screw inspiration.”
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Comments 2
Reminded me of Chuck Close's "Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work." Butler's version is great too. Also in the article is one from Camus—"Works of art are not born in flashes of inspiration but in a daily fidelity”—and, farther back, Tchaikovsky: "A self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood."
I'm sure there are others, anyone have more examples?
Edit: I hear often this idea that you have to write, even if you don't want to. For me the problem is more about not knowing what to write. I imagine this website's community (and its author!) might have some good ideas for solving this too?
My sense is that the content of the writing isn’t as important as the act of writing. At least at first, the most important piece is developing a practice. There are plenty of lists of writing prompts out there, or you can just open a dictionary to a random page every morning and write about something inspired by a word, or including the word, or whatever works. Don’t wait for inspiration!
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