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"A writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view, a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway."
— Junot Diaz (via livelearnandpanic)

"For it would seem — her case proved it — that we write, not with the fingers, but with the whole person. The nerve which controls the pen winds itself about every fibre of our being, threads the heart, pierces the liver."
— Virginia Woolf, Orlando
(via seabois)

"Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk."
— Henry Jenkins, in Textual Poachers: Media Fans and Participatory Culture (via jaimelannister)

"

And there are millions of teens who read because they are sad and lonely and enraged. They read because they live in an often-terrible world. They read because they believe, despite the callow protestations of certain adults, that books-especially the dark and dangerous ones-will save them.

As a child, I read because books–violent and not, blasphemous and not, terrifying and not–were the most loving and trustworthy things in my life. I read widely, and loved plenty of the classics so, yes, I recognized the domestic terrors faced by Louisa May Alcott’s March sisters. But I became the kid chased by werewolves, vampires, and evil clowns in Stephen King’s books. I read books about monsters and monstrous things, often written with monstrous language, because they taught me how to battle the real monsters in my life.

And now I write books for teenagers because I vividly remember what it felt like to be a teen facing everyday and epic dangers. I don’t write to protect them. It’s far too late for that. I write to give them weapons–in the form of words and ideas-that will help them fight their monsters. I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed.

"

"To anyone wanting to write: There is no easy way to do it. It will hurt like a bruise across your chest. It will drain you and hollow you out. It will leave you feeling empty for a while, but this can also be a good thing. I don’t have to explain to you why to write because you have your own reasons. All I can say is write with all your heart. Write with a freedom you may not have in other areas of your life. Write about faraway places, foreign feelings, people you’ve never met. Write about your best friend, your skin, your bones. Write about the love you’ve felt, the love you’ve lost and all the missed connections. Write about ordinary things like grocery lists and handmade mittens. Write about the weather, the trees, the earth, the fire. Crumple your paper and write on desks instead. Write on permanent things like walls and favorite jeans because nothing is ever really permanent. Write on things that won’t last like sidewalks and restaurant napkins. Write in pockets of jackets and give them to Goodwill. Write in the covers of library books or between the margins. Write like you’re a child learning to read, write like you have no idea what you’re doing, write like you’re an expert. If you wish to write, then write. There’s a reason write sounds like right because there is no wrong way to do so."
— Kelsey Danielle, “A Letter” (via siriusbingers)

"I write because writing is power. Writing is creation. When you write, you are as a god, a deity wielding his pen like some Harry Potter staff, making whatever you want to happen, happen. By sheer force of will and some clever word placement, I can arrange all of these little symbols together to invoke emotions and ideas at a whim out of whosoever allows me to cast my spell. It does not take a man and a woman to create. It just takes a writer."
— Jonathan Culver (via ilivetowriteandinspire)

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” - The Velveteen Rabbit (or How Toys Become Real) by Margery Williams, 1922


“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

- The Velveteen Rabbit (or How Toys Become Real) by Margery Williams, 1922


"I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I’m afraid of."
— Joss Whedon (via komaa)

casinpanties:

“For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.” 
― Ernest Hemingway



There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter—the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these trembling cities the greatest is the last—the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh yes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company… — E.B. White, ‘Here is New York’

There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter—the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these trembling cities the greatest is the last—the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh yes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company… — E.B. White, ‘Here is New York’


"If it were simple to write the perfect novel, memoir, or screenplay there would be a lot more people doing just that. The truth is, writing can be difficult. It involves craft and passion and more than a bit of magic."
— Martha Alderson (via amandaonwriting)


"Fiction writers are strange beasts. They are, like all writers, observers first and foremost. Everything that happens to and around them is potential material for a story, and they look at it that way."
— Terry Brooks (via writingquotes)