William Stafford Quotes

Write regularly, whether you feel like writing or not, and whether you think what you're writing is any good or not.

A professional writer is someone who writes just as well when they're not inspired as when they are.

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

First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice.

I started writing every day. I never stopped.

Writing is a wholetime job: no professional writer can afford only to write when he feels like it.

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're going to be a writer you should sit down and write in the morning, and keep it up all day, every day. Charles Bukowski, no matter how drunk he got the night before or no matter how hungover he was, the next morning he was at his typewriter. Every morning. Holidays, too. He'd have a bottle of whiskey with him to wake up with, and that's what he believed. That's the way you became a writer: by writing. When you weren't writing, you weren't a writer.

Discipline is what makes a writer. If writing was like lifting weights, then I'd look like Mr. Universe. Write every day. Give the Muse a chance to get to know you.

Writing is the only thing I've ever done with persistence, except for being married.

Write a little bit every day, each day. Visit it, every day - in other words, show up for work.

Novelists are stamina merchants, grinders, nine-to-fivers, and their career curves follow the usual arc of human endeavour.

You have to write every day, and you have to write whether you feel like it or not.

Here's the bottom line; writers write. Sometimes words flow easily. Sometimes it's like sloughing through mud. Either way a professional writer keeps writing.

The only way to find out if you can write is to set aside a certain period every day and try. Save enough money to give yourself six months to be a full-time writer. Work every day and the pages will pile up.

I sit down religiously every morning, I sit down for eight hours every day - and the sitting down is all.

A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it.

Talent is cheap. What really matters is discipline.

The only difference between a writer and someone who wants to be a writer is discipline.

There is no trick to it. If you like to write and want to write, you write, no matter where you are or what else you are doing or whether anyone pays any heed.

Most writers want to share their essay or book much too quickly. Those who accept the pain of hard work and revising are those who get published.

Write a little every day, without hope, without despair.

If you want to write and can't figure out how to do it, try this: Pick an amount of time to sit at your desk every day. Start with twenty minutes, say, and work up as quickly as possible to as much time as you can spare. Do you really want to write? Sit for two hours a day.

All through my career I've written 1,000 words a day - even if I've got a hangover. You've got to discipline yourself if you're professional. There's no other way.