Writing can be a rollercoaster. Some days the words are flowing and you are completely in the zone. Other days it is the opposite. Your book is floundering, your will to write has vanished and your willpower appears to have packed up and left town. It happens to every writer at some point. Some days you just don’t feel like writing.
When you feel like that it can help to look to other authors for inspiration. There are loads of tips and tricks to get moving again but sometimes all you need is some well-selected words. I personally love a motivational quote and enjoy picking them out of our author interviews. Often it’s all you need to feel uplifted and inspired. With that said, here are 17 of my favorite quotes to help you shake off the writer’s block and get back in the creative zone.
Convince yourself that you are working in clay, not marble, on paper not eternal bronze: Let that first sentence be as stupid as it wishes. – Jacques Barzun
Think of your favorite writer. The one that constantly blows you away by their clever plot twists, their marvelous characterization, the way they make the words glow on the page. And then imagine what that writer’s very first story was like. Or, heck, their first ten stories. Maybe even their first fifty stories. If you are imagining works of genius, I can tell you that writer would laugh very, very hard. – Marissa Meyer
At one point I thought I would never be an author. It was my dream, but I doubted I’d ever achieve it. But then I got serious. I turned my dream into a plan, and my plan into a goal, and now I’ve written five novels. You can do this – just believe in yourself, and never give up. – Natalia Leigh
Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it's the only way you can do anything really good. ― William Faulkner
Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way. – Ray Bradbury
Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. ― E. L. Doctorow
Whatever our experience level, we have to surrender to writing what’s hard to write. Writing what keeps us up at night...A piece of writing should challenge something in its author. That’s where the juiciness comes in, the fire and the depth, where we can gain access to something universal. ― Chris White
Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. ― Sylvia Plath
I’ve read books that have spoken to my heart and when I’ve finished them I’ve hugged them close to my chest and thought, ‘that’s what I want to do. I want to write like that’. ― Rowena May O’Sullivan
An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail. ― Edwin Land
It wasn’t until my early twenties that I stopped saying “I can’t” and started doing it. I have been writing with fervent passion ever since. Sometimes we are the biggest thing holding ourselves back. ― Jennifer Wilson
It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly. ― C. J. Cherryh
This is how you do it: You sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It’s that easy, and that hard. ― Neil Gaiman
Just write. Even if you think it’s going nowhere. Even if you think it stinks. Even if you’re convinced that no one in their right mind would ever, ever want to read it. Because you certainly can’t prove yourself wrong unless you try. ―Lindsey Ouimet
Writing is still the most difficult job I've ever had - but it's worth it. ― John Grisham
Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too. ― Isabel Allende
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