Christian Freelance Writers Network
Musings on the business, craft, and joy of faith-filled writing
The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day. . . you will never be stuck. Always stop while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start.
Ernest Hemingway
The most original authors are not so because they advance what is new, but because they put what they have to say as if it had never been said before.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.
C.S. Lewis
Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things—childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves—that go on slipping, like sand, through our fingers.
Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991
Those who have been writing for a while may feel like the honeymoon is over, particularly when dealing with multiple rewrites or struggling to meet a deadline. Just as we are to guard our hearts against losing our first love for the Lord in our spiritual journey, the same principle may apply to our first love for writing… The best advice may be: “Do the things you did at first” (Revelation 2:5).
Melony Teague, As the Ink Flows, p. 56
A good book has no ending.
– Robert Frost
There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.
– Frank Herbert
A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.
– Italo Calvino
Art is never finished, only abandoned.
– Leonardo da Vinci
How do you know when it’s time to let go of your manuscript or project? Do you feel pressured to tie things up or are you able to trust the conclusion to your audience? Please share your thoughts below.
Ignore all lists of writing tips. Including this one. And including this tip. Or at least take them with a big pinch of salt. I have never met two writers who work exactly the same way: One of the hardest, but ultimately most rewarding, things about writing is that you have to work out for yourself who and what you are as a writer, and how you yourself work best. When you’re starting out, it’s very easy to see a piece of advice by [insert your favourite author here] and think, If s/he writes like this, I must do it that way too. That can be unhelpful, and instead I think that every time you hear a writing tip, you have to decide whether it means something to you, resonates with you, or whether it sounds like the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard. It’s your book, you need to learn to write it your way. Now please ignore this advice.
Marcus Sedgwick, at the 2016 Cheltenham Literature Festival
Just sit down and write your book.
I know that sounds painfully simple, but you’d be surprised how many people want to write a book but never do. So just “doing it” is 80 percent of the battle.
Have fun when you write. Don’t worry about how it turns out. Lose yourself in your sentences. Enjoy the tapping sound of the keyboard. Success is not not your reward. Your life is your reward. The book is merely evidence of your wonderful life.
Sean Dietrich
When you write, you should pretend that you, the writer, see something in the world that’s interesting, that you are directing the attention of your reader to that thing in the world, and that you are doing so by means of conversation.
Steven Pinker
Step 1: Wonder at something.
Step 2: Invite others to wonder with you.
Point at things, say, “whoa,” and elaborate.
Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist
I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.
– John D. Rockefeller
Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.
– Biz Stone, Twitter co-founder
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.
2 Peter 1:5-7
A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.
E.B. White
If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.
C.S. Lewis
If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done.
Ecclesiastes 11:4 (The Living Bible)
