Peter McWilliams Quotes

I think that very often younger writers don't appreciate how much hard work is involved in writing. The part of writing that's magic is the thinnest rind on the world of creation. Most of a writer's life is just work. It happens to be a kind of work that the writer finds fulfilling in the same way that a watchmaker can happily spend countless hours fiddling over the tiny cogs and bits of wire. ... I think the people who end up being writers are people who don't get bored doing that kind of tight focus in small areas.

If you want to be a rock star, you're not going to just walk on stage. You gotta go practice in the garage until your fingers bleed. I always say that - the same with writing and the same with filmmaking - if it's really your passion, you've just got to stick with it and do it.

If you want to write, do two things - read lots of books and also, in your own writing, practise. Just write and write and then write again. persist. And never be put off or discouraged. You can do it!

The main thing about writing is... writing. Sitting your butt down in the chair and doing the work.

When you're writing fiction or poetry... it really comes down to this: indifference to everything except what you're doing... A young writer could do worse than follow the advice given in those lines.

When things aren't working out, we have a tendency to say, 'Go do other things,' but you shouldn't do other things. You need to stay at your desk and continue to try to write. You need to insist on it.

Writing requires the concentration of the writer, demands that nothing else be done except that.

You don't turn out as many books as I did then by sitting around, being cozy with the family.

If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.

The only way to learn writing is by writing. Talent, as charming as it sounds, amounts to no more than 12 per cent of the process. Work is 80 per cent. The remaining 8 per cent is 'luck' or 'zeitgeist' - in short, things that are not in our hands.

You learn to write the same way you learn to play golf... You do it, and keep doing it until you get it right. A lot of people think something mystical happens to you, that maybe the muse kisses you on the ear. But writing isn’t divinely inspired – it’s hard work.

patience is an integral part of talent.

If you want to write, you write. Talent is simply not enough.

I think writing well takes a little bit of talent and an awful lot of work.

For every two minutes of glamour, there are eight hours of hard work.

I've never abandoned the novel.

As a writer, I've always been somebody who's been productive and hustled hard.

If you wish to be a writer, write.

Writing is a workout, just like going for a run!

On a good day I write, all day.

If you want to be a writer, just write. There's no magic to it.

If you're a songwriter, you have to do homework. You can exist for a while on the inspiration, but at some point, you have to sit down and have the discipline to write - to finish the poem, as they say.

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.

If you really want to write, then shut yourself in a room, close the door, and WRITE. If you don't want to write, do something else. It's as simple as that.

I am always trying to write.