Conceptual Writing Quotes

Conceptual writing is looking for that "Aha!" moment, when something so simple, right under our noses, is revealed as being awe- inspiring, profound, and transcendent. ~ Kenneth Goldsmith

Write from truth, write from self.
Writing theory or conceptual writing may be
A way to create new forms or styles but in the end?
The Words Must Be Your Own. ~ R.M. Engelhardt

In the act of writing he experiences, today, an exceptional sensual pleasure
in the feel of the pen, snug in the crook of his thumb, but even more in the feel of his hand being tugged back lightly from its course across the page by the strict, unvarying shape of the letters, the discipline of the alphabet. ~ J.M. Coetzee

I've always though of writing as the opposite of suicide," she said. "That writing was about immortality. Defeating death, or at least forestalling it."
"Like Scheherazade?"
"Yes," she said. "Spinning tales to forestall her execution ... ~ Ruth Ozeki

I suppose I often think of my writing as quite impersonal. But it turned out, when my father died, writing was exactly what I wanted to do. ~ Zadie Smith

I started writing when I was about thirteen. ~ Al Purdy

Me, i'm going to write ass-kicking trans* characters. I think I might end up writing not a single thing that is "pure" by some people's standards. Just because, and because I can. ~ Aleksandr Voinov

From my years of teaching creative writing, I know that new writers take the setting for granted, as simply a place to set the action, but setting is a vital element in fiction writing and deserves serious treatment. ~ Garry Disher

The only thing worth thinking about, when I write a story, is whether I like it, whether I want to write it, whether it excites me. ~ Theodora Goss

I get very deep into the writing and recording process. ~ Natasha Bedingfield

Never will I make that extra effort to live according to reality which alone makes good writing possible: hence the manic-depressiveness of my style, - which is either bright, cruel and superficial; or pessimistic; moth-eaten with self-pity ~ Cyril Connolly

And if minor characters show an inclination to become major characters … you at least give them a shot at it, because … just as in the real world it may take you many years to find out that the stranger you talked to once for half an hour in the railroad station may have done more to point you to where your true homeland lies than your priest or your best friend or even your psychiatrist. ~ Anne Lamott

I see the author as the person who has written; the writer, the one involved in the process of writing. And they're not necessarily friends. The writer is the one I want to reinforce; the author would just feed on the reviews - so I'm in favour of starving him. ~ Edward St. Aubyn

I got a little bit lost in the writing process: like, that moment in the 'Fight Song' music video where I'm throwing the crumpled paper on the bed, that was really true life. I was filling journals with different possibilities of lyrics for the first verse. And none of them felt right. ~ Rachel Platten

Hough I was creative, I also liked math and science. At Knox College, I studied creative writing and earned a degree in chemistry, thinking I would attend medical school. Ultimately, I decided that a career in nursing would allow more time for pursuing other creative interests. While I worked as an RN, I wrote stories inspired by my patients, designed t-shirts, and made hand-painted sandals. ~ Mary Pope Osborne

The ability to be writing towards something that was actually going to be a whole series was a really big lure. ~ Tim Kring

I never considered myself part of rock 'n' roll. My stuff was more adult. It was more difficult for teenagers to relate to; my stuff was filled with more despair than anything you'd associate with rock 'n' roll. Since I couldn't see people dancing, I didn't write jitterbugs or twists. I wrote rhythms that moved me. My style requires pure heart singing. ~ Ray Charles

I didn't write 'Snow White' for any class, but I got bitten by the screenwriting bug and wrote a couple of scripts in my spare time instead of going to keg parties or something. ~ Evan Daugherty

Over time I learned that there are two very different satisfactions that you can have in your life. One is the satisfaction of becoming skilled at something. It almost doesn't matter what the terrain is. There is a deep, soul-feeding resonance in mastery itself, whether in teaching, writing a complicated software program, coaching a baseball team, or marshalling a group of people to start a new business ... ~ Atul Gawande

At the end of all things, why do lovers break up?

Because love is magic. You have to believe, for it to exist. ~ Timothy Joshua

Metaphors are not user-friendly. They're difficult to find and difficult to use well. Unfortunately, metaphors are a mainstay of good lyric writing-indeed of most creative writing ... metaphors support lyrics like bones. ~ Pat Pattison

There are times you wake up in the middle of the night, fingers hit the keyboard and you allow words to flow. That is a writer. ~ Jenn E.

When I've acted, and it's not been something I've written or have had at least a hand in writing, I do think there is a controlling side of me that is frustrated by that. And I actually don't think that it's a bad thing, because if I'm going to be in movies, in large part they're going to be movies that I write. ~ Mindy Kaling

Someone described a writer's world as tormented, and I had to laugh. A tormented writer? I personally wouldn't have put those two words together.
Emotions have the power to torment a soul, yes, I agree to that. But writers, through the formation of our characters, delve so often into the depths of a vast range of emotions that we earn the advantage. For we've examined every little thrumming, fracture, spark, pang, and darkening of the heart to a point that we understand and appreciate the necessity and strength of emotions as well as the cause and effects manipulating them.
We understand.
We can imagine.
We sympathize.
Our knowledge is power over the torment of emotional ignorance.
I would suggest that those truly tormented are the readers of our works because those poor souls shall never know with such clarity and sentiment all the tiny little details that make our characters breath, move, and live before our very eyes.
Perhaps, if torment does lurk among writers, it comes simply through knowing more about an imagined friend than can ever be adequately expressed in words. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

It is as well that the world knows only a fine piece of work and not also its origins, the conditions under which it came into being; for knowledge of the sources of an artist's inspiration would often confuse readers and shock them, and the excellence of the writing would be of no avail. ~ Thomas Mann

When I'm writing a book, you can't think about your audience. You're going to be in big trouble if you think about it. You're got to write from deep inside. ~ Judy Blume

Don't write love poems when you're in love. Write them when you're not in love. ~ Richard Hugo

Poetic success is when you write a poem that makes you excited and bewildered and aglow. ~ Matthea Harvey

If I propose to myself and myself says yes, I get to have the cake, right? I love me, so I'm thinking 12 tiers. ~ Michelle M. Pillow

I'm writing the chapter where
you're still in love with me,
but then the chapter ends &
I turn the page. ~ Darshana Suresh

At these times, the things that troubled her seemed far away and unimportant: all that mattered was the hum of the bees and the chirp of birdsong, the way the sun gleamed on the edge of a blue wildflower, the distant bleat and clink of grazing goats. ~ Alison Croggon

Smoke-ccss-b85b07: Tell me about a time when you did something evil. ABlum: oh gee well sometimes i work too hard is that evil? Smoke-ccssb85b07: Sarcasm ignored. ABlum: ok um when i started college, my brother raph pressured me to join the ut austin chapter of his fraternity and i joined, only to discover that fraternities are the stupidest forms of social organization ever invented so, live and learn but at the end of the fall semester, one of my frat brothers offered to pay me to write his final history paper and i did it but i didn't want to get caught, so i read his earlier papers and put a lot of work into imitating his shitty writing which made the paper a d+ at best so he failed the class and i wouldn't give the money back so they made up an honor code violation and kicked me out of the frat and at the time i remember thinking "this has worked out surprisingly well" so, i don't know what you consider "evil" but i'm sure you can find it somewhere in there ~ Leonard Richardson

Seneca's virtue shows forth so live and vigorous in his writings, and the defense is so clear there against some of these imputations, as that of his wealth and excessive spending, that I would not believe any testimony to the contrary. ~ Michel De Montaigne

I think that, like in my writing, reality is always a soap bubble, Silly Putty thing anyway. In the universe people are in, people put their hands through the walls, and it turns out
they're living in another century entirely. I often have the feeling - and it does show up in my books - that this is all just a stage. ~ Philip K. Dick

Writing songs is cheaper than going to therapy. ~ Brent Smith

You have to have really wide reading habits and pay attention to the news and just everything that's going on in the world: you need to. If you get this right, then the writing is a piece of cake. ~ Terry Pratchett

A $3 Cup of Coffee is Worth a Book. ~ Daniel Marques

It's a difficult path that we tread, us Indie self-publishers, but we're not alone. How many bands practicing in their dad's garage have heard of a group from the neighbourhood who got signed by a recording company? Or how many artists who love to paint, but are not really getting anywhere with it hear of someone they went to art school with being offered an exhibition in a gallery? How many chefs who love to get creative around food hear of someone else who's just landed a job with Marco Pierre White?
There's no difference between us and them. There is, however, a huge difference in how everyone else perceives the writer. And there's a huge difference between all of us – the writers, the musicians, the composers, the chefs, the dance choreographers and to a certain extent the tradesmen - and the rest of society in that no one understands us. It's a wretched dream to hope that our creativity gets recognised while our family thinks we're wasting our time when the lawn needs mowing, the deck needs painting and the bedroom needs decorating.
It's acceptable to go into the garage to tinker about with a motorbike, but it's a waste of a good Sunday afternoon if you go into the garage and practice your guitar, or sit in your study attempting to capture words that have been floating around your brain forever. ~ Karl Wiggins

Don't get me wrong, God Bless the farmers and cowboys. It just wasn't the life I wanted. When writing stories of other lands, I can describe people and places from actual experience. And for someone with an imagination like me, I could see dinosaurs and lost civilizations in the jungle of Vietnam. ~ Tom Johnson

I don't see any division between the comic and the tragic. I feel like I'm writing about serious things, and humour is one of my tools. It's not contrived, just part of my world, part of the way things are to me. ~ Miriam Toews

Novelists are no more moral or certain than anybody else; we are ideologically adrift, and if we are any good then our writing will live in several places at once. That is both our curse and our charm. ~ Andrew O'Hagan

Okay. Right. Horror meets romance meets erotica meets fantasy meets hip hop. Throw in some leather and some Miami Ink shit, stir with a baseball bat and a tire iron, sprinkle on some baby powder, and serve over a hot bed of Holy-Mary-mother-of-God-this-has-to-work-or-I'm-going-to-be-a-lawyer-for-the-rest-of-my-natural-life.
No problem."
(J.R. Ward on the elements of writing the Black Dagger Brotherhood) ~ J.R. Ward

I just try to put the thing out and hope somebody will read it. Someone says: 'Whom do you write for?' I reply: 'Do you read me?' If they say 'Yes,' I say, 'Do you like it?' If they say 'No,' then I say, 'I don't write for you.' ~ W. H. Auden