The Saturday Writing Quote — on reading

“Successful professional writers are not withholding mysterious secrets from eager beginners. The only way anybody ever learns to write well is by trying to write well. This usually begins by reading good writing by other people, and writing very badly by yourself, for a long time. You find out how to make the thing work by working at it – coming back to it, testing it, seeing where it sticks or wobbles or cheats, and figuring out how to make it go where it has to go.”

— Ursula K. LeGuin (1929-2018)

painting: “Bitterroot Winter” by Rachel Warner, collection of the author

The Saturday Writing Quote — on reading

I reread Stephen King’s On Writing, originally published in 2000, last year and found that not only did it hold up well, it held bits of wisdom I may have been too inexperienced to grasp back then. But I think I’ve always grasped this pithy principle.

 

“Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life.”

— Stephen King, On Writing (2000)

The Saturday Writing Quote — on reading

With the weather changing, many of us have more time for reading, curling up in a favorite chair with a cup of coffee, tea, or chai and a good book. I’ve got a terrific stack waiting for me! So for October, a few excellent quotes on reading, especially its importance to writers and other creators.

“If I had to choose between writing and reading, I would choose to read, because there is so much I’ve yet to learn, so many worlds I’ve yet to visit, all secreted away between the pages of a book. Writing is what I do and how I communicate. Reading gives me permission for what I do by widening the lanes of my creativity and narrative ambition. Writing is work, but reading is pleasure. …

“Reading was a means to enter a different reality from the physical one I was forced to embody. I don’t want to contemplate how I would have endured these weeks without plunging into books, for pleasure and for research. I’m glad I didn’t have to.”

Sarah Weinman in “The Year I Went Bald,” about writing her first book, The Real Lolita, while undergoing treatment for breast cancer, in The Walrus