Writing Autonomy Quotes

When I'm writing, sometimes it gets to that place where I feel like the piece is writing itself and I'm trying not to get in the way.

Freedom is the basic prerequisite for writing.

I'm feeling a kind of liberty to write about what's interesting to me without worrying about what I should be writing about. And that feels good.

It's really liberating and fun to be writing stuff for myself, and really have the freedom to say what I want to say and not really have to think about what somebody else is going to say or have to edit myself to speak from someone else's vision.

Within reason, I can write what I like and spend as long doing it as is necessary. That is a luxury beyond price.

The idea of having to make constant reference to politics is anathema to my calling as a writer.

The easiest thing I do is assignment songs. They tell me what they need me to write. I can do that fairly quickly. Writing for an orchestra is difficult. Writing songs [on your own] is most difficult of all. Though [writing for] the orchestra is close.

I've always felt writing is an art. Publishing is a business. I felt strongly if I was going to write, I would write what I wanted to, and if the 'market' didn't respond, there was nothing I could really do about it.

When I started writing a business column 15 years ago, I knew I'd found the perfect job for myself. As a columnist I could pick my own topic, do my own analysis, say what I wanted to say and attribute it to myself. Best of all, I could write in my own voice.

I always figure there are novels and short stories, and in those, I'm God. No one tells me what to do. I don't have to lose a page, or cut anything, it's just mine. Then there are other things where you're up against realities.

'Ordinary Grace' freed me. I don't have to write only Cork O'Connor novels now. I'm liberated. I can write whatever I want to write.

I think fiction writers should work. If you have a job and are not living off advances or grants, you never have to make concessions in your writing, ever.

I cannot imagine any writer who would not fight for his peace and quiet.

I always write the pieces I want to write.

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

I don't understand why one should be one thing or the other. Writing, to me, is writing is writing. It should be a flexible tool. Whatever skills I have, have to work for me; I won't be dictated by them.

I think I began to like writing a lot more, and to be a better writer, when I did it for a while alone. It made me a little more confident about my style.

I write wherever I am. It helps that the writing process, for me, is a lone-wolf mission.

The great thing about being a novelist is that you organize your own day.

Writing might be unalloyed joy, were it not for the fact that power is always shadowed by responsibility. Thankfully, the absolute power that writers have is not weighted down with absolute responsibility. It can neither be suppressed nor diminished, except by choice.

I think every writer has got to direct. If you don't direct, you can't protect your work. The only way to ensure that it's going to be as close as possible to what you put down on paper - and what you see and hear in your head - is to do it yourself.

I don't have a writer's room. I write all the shows myself. Ninety-one episodes a season, I'm sitting there at the computer writing and writing and writing because I want the voice to be authentic so that the audience is hearing from me and not other writers.

As far as I am concerned, I write novels, and other people can do the labelling.

A novel and its writer are inseparable: you are your books. A play's not like that at all. 'Abandonment's not mine - it's everyone's. I wanted it to be a co-operative thing because I was tired of that anal control that I have over novels.

I enjoy writing but I wouldn't want to do it all the time because generally you are not writing about things you want to write about.