Writing Challenges Quotes

I am not one of those writers that it just flows out of effortlessly. I have to sit and write and rewrite and sometimes it's really challenging to get anything good out of myself. ~ Princess Superstar

I binge write. I think it's because I started seriously writing by participating in National Novel Writing Month, an online-based challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. ~ Erin Morgenstern

Structure is, for me, the most fun challenge about writing novels. ~ Heidi Julavits

For me, the challenge is just making great albums, because talent - and writing in general - is not tangible. There's no expiration date on it. At the same time, you might wake up tomorrow and be unable to write music. ~ Jay-Z

I love writing. It's a fun challenge. It refuels me personally. ~ Trevor McNevan

As a writer one doesn't belong anywhere. Fiction writers, I think, are even more outside the pale, necessarily on the edge of society. Because society and people are our meat, one really doesn't belong in the midst of society. The great challenge in writing is always to find the universal in the local, the parochial. And to do that, one needs distance. ~ William Trevor

I accept challenges, I have always done that in writing. ~ Jack Prelutsky

As a poet or a novelist or a painter, you are pushing yourself all the time, always looking for a new way to approach something, challenging yourself and never, never trying to write the same book twice. ~ Paul Auster

When I try to write I try to write something different every time. That's the challenge. ~ Bob Seger

Buffy the Vampire Slayer showed the whole world, and an entire sprawling industry, that writing monsters and demons and end-of-the-world is not hack-work, it can challenge the best. Joss Whedon raised the bar for every writer - not just genre/niche writers, but every single one of us. ~ Russell T. Davies

I like the way words go together and I like the gamesmanship of writing poetry. It is such a challenge. ~ Jeffery Deaver

The writing is always the easy part, provided I can get the good material. It's the getting of the good material that's a challenge. ~ Mary Roach

It's very hard to find good and wholesome, edifying and challenging writing for the students to perform. In my classroom I strive to do that as best as I can. ~ Patricia Mauceri

The challenge is always as a writer, is this going to work, because it's a very intimate process, and I tend to be very introverted and insular, and when I write, it's in my head. ~ Gloria Estefan

I like big escapist films. It's odd because the type of comedian I am and the things I do when I'm writing and directing myself usually deal with the darker side of the human psyche and excruciating social faux pas. I often deal in taboos and the subjects I do as a stand-up are quite challenging. But my film roles have been much more fun and escapist. ~ Ricky Gervais

I did six series for the BBC and that was enough. I've been writing for ten years, which is more challenging artistically. ~ Alexei Sayle

Remarkably, there's no green screen in 'Leaves of Grass' movie. There is motion control. Technically, there were all sorts of challenges, but really the soul of it is Edward Norton talent. You write these characters when you write a movie, and all you can hope for or depend on is that your actors will elevate the material. ~ Edward Norton

I felt that I had to write. Even if I had never been published, I knew that I would go on writing, enjoying it and experiencing the challenge. ~ Gwendolyn Brooks

As an artist, you never want to write the same song again, you always want to challenge yourself to writing in a different way. ~ Serj Tankian

If you are a genius, you'll make your own rules, but if not - and the odds are against it - go to your desk no matter what your mood, face the icy challenge of the paper - write. ~ J.B. Priestley

Each book has been different and has been challenging in its own way to write. ~ Jean M. Auel

What I read: while I'm writing, I tend to go off reading fiction for relaxation - especially the challenging stuff. It's too much like the day job. ~ Charles Stross

I write in longhand and assemble lots of notes, and then I try to collate them into a coherent chronology. It's like groping along in the dark. I like writing and find it challenging, but I don't find it easy. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

My job is writing. I get paid to do it. When was the last time you heard someone challenge a doctor for making money off of cancer? ~ Joyce Maynard

A story works when there's momentum, life behind the words. Some stories have this and others don't, and it's difficult to say why this is. If all stories "worked," though, writing wouldn't be much of a challenge; it wouldn't be art. ~ Mary J. Miller

Writing is a beast to tame, an energy to transform. Whip that toad into a prince and French kiss it to life. We start at the top but keep looking down, from macro to micro, from what could work to what does - but start with the dream. Nothing is real apart from the clouds, and all clouds pass with life in their wake - some rain thoughts. ~ Chila Woychik

Writing has been challenging at times but that's where all the growth is. I know I'm in the right place if it's difficult. Something a British writer said to me once was: "If the project doesn't make him wobble, he doesn't take it." You have to be uncomfortable to grow. ~ Geoff Thompson

I love writing pop songs and I love the challenge. I love melodies and wanted it to be classy. I wanted it to have some substance because I feel as if I have a lot of things to say and wanted it to have something to it. ~ Courtney Jaye

I see myself doing Harry Potter films as long as I'm enjoying it and as long as they are going to challenge me as an actor. I want to be an actor - it's my aspiration - so I want to do other films. I want to write something and I want to direct something! ~ Daniel Radcliffe

Perhaps because the challenges we face in our country are so daunting, we are also tempted by shortcuts. We tell ourselves that if we invent a new acronym, or write a new empowerment charter, we can avoid some of the back-breaking work that sustained progress requires ~ Helen Zille

The most enjoyable part in writing a series is being able to visit a world I have created and revisit old friends. The challenges are making the book fresh and new for readers who have started from the beginning while still adding old information for new readers. ~ Christine Feehan

The way I challenge myself is by writing something that really engages me, that doesn't have an easy answer, and isn't always an easy book to write. ~ Jodi Picoult

If you play Mark Twain and he's not funny, you are definitely not playing Mark Twain. That was the biggest challenge, in some ways. Writing and performing jokes that can come out of that brilliant delivery system he constructed: the friendly, avuncular truth-teller. ~ Val Kilmer

I regard the writing of humor as a supreme artistic challenge. ~ Herman Wouk

Food is fun to write about because everybody has an opinion. Food is also fun to write about because it's a challenge. There are only so many ways to describe a plate of gnudi without resorting to "pillowy." ~ Lauren Collins

I liked the challenge of writing in a very concise structure in which both meaning and form are important. ~ Jeffery Deaver

Our resources may be finite, but our will is infinite, and I am confident that if we come together and summon that great American spirit once again, we will meet the challenges of our time and write the next great chapter in our American story. ~ Barack Obama

A writer seeks to discover a lucid state of creative consciousness uncoiling from a boule of internal disequilibrium and dutifully attempts to bridge that cavernous divide between the known and the unknown and articulate raw truths. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail. ~ Dorothea Brande

What a writer needs?
A friend. A friend that'll accompany beside solitude itself. ~ Desi Puspitasari

Good writing must stay open to the questions and not fall prey to the pull of a polemic, otherwise, words simply become predictable, sentimental, and stale. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

From those who agonize that they may no longer be able to write off their private jet to someone who doesn't feel like making the three mile hike to the well to get water and carry it back, everyone struggles. ~ Henry Rollins

When you write about animals, of course, you are really writing about the people who love and live with them. Animals mirror and reveal us. Dogs in particular are often reflections of us, and what we need them to be. ~ Jon Katz

I never thought I'd write, because I'd never written anything in my whole life. ~ Linda Ronstadt

I started writing because there's an absence of things I was familiar with or that I dreamed about. One of my senses of anger is related to this vacancy - a yearning I had as a teenager ... and when I get ready to write, I think I'm trying to fill that. ~ Ntozake Shange

Writing isn't a job so much as a compulsion. I've been writing since I was very young because for some strange reason, I must write, and also because when I write, I feel more alive and closer to the world than when I'm not writing. ~ Siri Hustvedt

Maybe half a dozen think they are a community, but, in general terms, I think English writers tend to face outwards, away from each other, and write in their own patch, as it were. ~ William Golding

Once I had all the facts in, I found I didn't have the immoral courage to pull the caper. So I wrote it as a story. As a teenager, I didn't have any skills for writing as such, so it came out in 1500 words. ~ Theodore Sturgeon

A mist rises from a nearby mound. It could be me, that mist, or simply the caretaker's mower-dust. If the breeze blows just right, I'll ghost your solid, entwine your hair. Promise me you won't shampoo, but carry me along, tiny dust-particles of me. ~ Chila Woychik

Life challenges are unavoidable. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

She keeps herself busy by hitting the gym, meditating, and volunteering at the local women's shelter. And at first, Julie's writing schedule is sporadic as she takes the time necessary to grieve over her lost relationship. But she realizes she feels best when she dedicates most of her time and energy to her novel. ~ Sheri Fink

Definition of a Writer: One who tells stories that demand to be told. ~ Ana Patrick

Most of my writing takes place at a cramped desk in a cramped apartment, so whenever I get to write on a train or make notes on a road trip, it has an entirely different cadence. And I can remember specific writing sessions while on a train through beautiful countryside in a way I can remember almost nothing else. ~ Genevieve Valentine

When I'm painting and drawing I only do people. Acting is obviously portraiture - and writing is as well. ~ Antony Sher

I took Eugene Sue's Arthur from the reading-room. It's indescribable, enough to make you vomit. You have to read this to realize the pitifulness of money, success, and the public. Literature has become consumptive. It spits and slobbers, covers its blisters with salve and sticking-plaster, and has grown bald from too much hair-slicking. It would take Christ of art to cure this leper. ~ Gustave Flaubert

Don't say you're a writer if you're not writing. Even if you're writing, don't call yourself a writer. Say instead, 'I write.' It's the verb that's important, not the noun. ~ Patti Digh

The most difficult thing about writing; is writing the first line. ~ Amit Kalantri

No writing? Your muse isn't speaking to you?'
'She rarely does. International cell charges and whatnot. Besides which, she's flighty and nearly impossible to understand. And she says I always misinterpret her intentions.'
'Muses. What can you do, right? ~ Kiersten White

I would be an actress for the rest of my life just because it's really relaxing. Writing is hard work, and stand-up is so stressful before you get on stage, but acting is a complete ensemble experience. ~ Kristen Schaal

Never lie in writing. ~ Mason Cooley

Writing is the greatest thing that can happen to a human being. It's the best. ~ Joss Whedon

Writing the story of their own life allows the author to parse their story into examinable segments while continuing to engage in the act of communion and creation. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

The thing I want to write most is the next thing I write. ~ Carroll Bryant

Unlike prose writing, the strange process of writing with pictures encourages associations and recollections to accumulate literally in front of your eyes; people, places, and events appear out of nowhere. Doors open into rooms remembered from childhood, faces form into dead relatives, and distant loves appear, almost magically, on the page- all deceptively manageable, visceral, the combinations sometimes even revelatory. ~ Chris Ware

Even experimental composers, revolutionary composers, self-styled radicals are, in writing revolutionary music, recognizing the music that preceded them precisely by trying to avoid it. ~ Leonard Bernstein

Ideas are cheap -- making something of them is difficult ~ Anne Sigismund Huff

Writing is discovering what you don't know. ~ Marty Rubin

E-mail creates the illusion that you're writing. You're not. ~ Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Folks are really tired of this rabid division between Republicans and Democrats. Folks want people to come together and solve the problems and the challenges of America. ~ Bev Perdue

Perhaps that is nearly the perfection of good writing which is original, but whose truth alone prevents the reader from suspecting that it is so; and which effects that for knowledge which the lens effects for the sunbeam, when it condenses its brightness in order to increase its force. ~ Charles Caleb Colton