Piers Anthony Quotes

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.

People imagine that there are rituals, like lighting candles or sacrificing chickens. They really just want to know what the magic formula is for writing. I inevitably disappoint them by saying you just put your butt in the chair, and you write 500 words a day, and then you get up and repeat it the next morning.

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

People always ask, 'How do you write so many books?' And I say, I work a lot. I work six or seven days a week.

I really try to write every day. It's hard, but it's my favorite thing to do, so it's usually not too, too hard.

Every spare second I would write, somehow. On my lunch hour, too.

And I have this little litany of things they can do. And the first one, of course, is to write - every day, no excuses. It's so easy to make excuses. Even professional writers have days when they'd rather clean the toilet than do the writing.

Writing - not being a writer with interesting habits - gets priority.

I write - and then I write some more.

The way you get better is putting words on the page and getting them behind you.

But, if there's any aspect of my career that needs attention, it's writing.

The only real advice you can give anyone is to keep writing.

Write every day even if it is just a paragraph.

I spent several years acquiring the obsessive, day-to-day discipline that's needed if you want to write professionally, then several more, highly valuable years studying fiction writing at the University of Iowa.

I am always trying to write.

Write a million words before thinking about getting published.

Writing is a job: you must show up.

Write every day. You don't have to write about anything specific, but you should exercise your writing muscle constantly.

When I am occupied with a work that requires continuity - a novel, for example - I write every day.

I write every day.

Just keep writing, and try to finish that novel. Remember, all authors started exactly where you are right now; the only difference between a published author and a non-published one is that the published author never stopped writing.

Most important of all, there is no right or wrong way to write - there's only what works for you. I was taught to write every day, but I know a writer (a bestseller at that!) who only writes on weekends.

It's the hardest thing in the world to dedicate to writing, but if you do that even once a week, after six months or a year you'll have something substantial.

I'm pretty much writing all the time.

My method is, I just sit down and write a book.