Writing Gems 1 àíãë

31.05.25. 

*****20 minutes of doing something is more valuable than 20 hours of thinking about doing something.*

*A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it is to be God.* (Sidney SHELDON)

***A character has to be ignorant of the future, unsure about the past, and not at all sure what he’s supposed to be doing.* (Anthony BURGESS) 

*****A happy life is not a life without struggle, it’s a life with meaningful struggle.* (Mark MANSON)

***Action is hope. At the end of each day, when you’ve done your work, you lie there and think, ‘Well, I’ll be damned, I did this today.’ It doesn’t matter how good it is, or how bad -- you did it.* (Ray BRADBURY)   

*****Any lesson you refuse to learn will repeat itself until you do.*

*A good novel tells us the truth about its hero. A bad novel tells us the truth about its author.* (G.K.CHESTERTON) 

*****A good teacher leaks curiosity into the cracks of indifference.* (Richard FEYNMAN)

***A great script needs a warrior behind it, pushing it to the finish line. The incredible script won’t get made on its own. Somebody has to valiantly shepherd it to a greenlit movie. That can be an agent. A producer. But many times, most of the time, it has to be you.* (Spyder DOBROFSKY) 

*A lot of games that are glamorized by society aren’t actually worth winning at all.*

***A mistake made twice is a lesson not learned.*

***A screenwriter’s currency is a finished script. Not an outline, a take, a beat sheet, a rough draft. A finished script.* (OUTSTANDING SCREENPLAYS)

*a SUBPLOT is a side story that runs parallel to the main plot. It has a secondary strand of characters and events that can infuse important information into the main storyline.* (INK TIPS) 

***A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.* (Thomas MANN)

*ACT 3 resolves the conflict -- so what is the conflict that needs to be resolved? That’s the key. Then find the most interesting and emotional way to resolve that conflict.* (William MARTELL)

***Action relieves anxiety. Remind yourself this everyday.*

*Anybody can become a writer, but the trick is to STAY a writer.* (Harlan ELLISON)

*Be decisive in your screenwriting. Make choices. About story, plot, characters, and moments. Everything. Be specific and confident. Every strong choice makes each subsequent choice easier because it eliminates millions of other choices. It’s the non-choices that drag you down.* (Tom VAUGHAN) 

***Become a ghost. Forget attention, validation, recognition, and what people think of you. Focus on yourself. Live in private. Date in private. Make money in private. Heal in private. Unlearn in private. Work on yourself in private. Grow in private. Checkmate in public.* (INNER PRACTITIONER)

*Before I go to bed at night, when my head hits the pillow, I will write a scene in my head. That’s usually going to be the first scene I write in the morning, so it’s kind of pre-written, which makes the day go by easier.* (Marc GUGGENHEIM)

***Being a good writer is 3% talent and 97% not being distracted by the internet.*

*Being a writer is almost entirely about perseverance. Life is going to continuously try to keep you from writing, or from getting published, or from getting things made, and you just have to get in life’s way instead and say NO.* (Robert CARGILL)

***Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.* (Viktor FRANKLE)

***By three methods we may learn wisdom:
first by reflection, which is the noblest;
second by imitation, which is the easiest;
third by experience, which is the bitterest.* (CONFUCIUS)   

*****Change. But start slowly, because direction is more important than speed.* (Paulo COELHO)

***Characters are not created by writers. They pre-exist and have to be found.* (Elizabeth BOWEN)

*Characters carry THEME. Develop your characters and set them in the story world where their values will conflict with one another. Allow your characters to struggle naturally and passionately. The theme will emerge without effort.* (James Scott BELL)

*Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.* (Barbara KINGSLOVER) 

***Consistency before intensity. Start small and become the kind of person who shows up every day. Build a new identity. Then increase the intensity.* (James CLEAR) 

***Criticism, rejection, and failure are rites of passage for the growth of any screenwriter. It’s a long haul journey. Face them with humility and learn.* (Mark SANDERSON)   

***DIALOGUE is the last element. Once you solve structure and story, then you can spend your time working on dialogue.* (Jeffrey LIEBER)

***Discipline is nothing but self-respect at the highest level.*

*****Distractions aren’t free. And that scroll costs more than you think. Are you checking the price tag?* (Dan MARTELL) 

*Do not stress over your latest screenplay. It’s going to be one of many. You just need that one to open a door of opportunity.* (Mark SANDERSON)

***Don’t write about a character. Become that character, and then write your story.* (Ethan CANIN)

*Don’t write what other people want. Figure out what YOU have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.* (Barbara KINGSLOVER)   

*Dreams are lovely, but passion is what an artist needs -- a passion for the work. That’s all that can carry you through the hard times.* (Ursula LE GUIN)

*Every five to ten pages, I want a big fist to come out of the screenplay and punch the reader in the gut.* (Allan DURAND)

***Every time you do the minimum you immediately disqualify yourself from greatness.* (Cody SANCHEZ)

***Every villain has their belief system that makes perfect sense to them.* (Patty JENKINS)

***Everyone can write, and everyone can ride a bike. But not everyone can do the freakin’ Tour de France, and not everyone can be a professional writer. It takes a lot of time, practice, and skill, to go from a person who can write to a writer.* (Ashley Nicole BLACK)

*Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.* (Jane YOLEN)

*FIRST draft: Let it run. Turn all the knobs up to 11.
SECOND draft: Hell. Cut it down and cut it into shape.
THIRD draft: Comb its nose and blow its hair.* (Terry PRATCHETT)

*****First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him.* (Ray BRADBURY)

***Focus starts with elimination, improves with concentration, and compounds with continuation.* (James CLEAR)

*****Forgiveness is taking knife out your own back and not using it to hurt anyone else no matter how they hurt you.*

*****Get through a draft as quickly as possible.* (Joshua Wolf SHENK)

*****Go do something great and your network will instantly emerge… And as Carl Jung said it, no matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel, if you do your work truly and conscientiously, unknown friends will come and seek you.*   

*****GOALS are for people who care about winning once. SYSTEMS are for people who care about winning repeatedly.* (James CLEAR)

*Good dialogue comes from character development. The better you know your character, the more specific the dialogue will feel.* (Chris McCOY)

***Good dialogue illuminates what people are not saying.* (Robert TOWNE)

*****Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.* (Henry LONGFELLOW)

***Great writers make their characters face their biggest fears. Exceptional writers make their characters face the WRITER’s biggest fears.*** (Jon SHAIVITZ)

*Great writers play to their strengths. If you’re hilarious, let yourself be funny. If you have an ear for dialogue, keep your characters talking. If you have a sixth sense for plotting and suspense, write a mystery.* (Arlaina TIBENSKY)   

*Great writing gets you meetings, great concept gets you a sale, great characters get you jobs. All three get you a career.* (Scott FRAZIER)

*How many pages have I produced? I don’t care. Are they any good? I don’t even think about it. All that matters is I’ve put in my time and hit it with all I’ve got. For this day, for this session, I have overcome Resistance.* (Steven PRESSFIELD)

*I always have one project I’m working on in the background. It’s my little passion project. If nothing ever happens with it, that’s fine. There’s no pressure. It makes writing fun. It helps me keep sanity.* (Stephany FOLSOM)

*I believe in a very thorough OUTLINE, of really cracking the story I think that’s where you make your money. If you don’t have the UNDERLYING STRUCTURE of the thing, you’re just running around in circles.* (Scott ROTHMAN)   

*****I come up with an ending I like -- that’s when I know I can write a story about it. I always need to have the ending in mind first. Everything else is building toward that destination.* (Ted CHIANG) 

*I don’t believe in rules for writing screenplays. What that gives you is formula, and the result will be formulaic.* (Christopher HAMPTON)

*****I have fifty great ideas, but what helps me choose what to write is knowing how it ends. You gotta know how it ends.* (Taylor SHERIDAN)

*****I have found what gets people’s attention is the script where you are laying your heart out on the table. Those are the ones that always get the most attention. The story that, if you do not tell it, you will not sleep at night.* (Laura KOSANN)

*I kept always two books in my pocket: one to read, one to write in* (R.L. STEVENSON)

***I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.* (Douglas ADAMS)

*I open a document and start brain dumping anything I can think of, all my questions, all my inspiration, all my ideas… Next I open a new document and do what I call a BARF draft… This raw draft is the clay that I’ve pulled up from the riverbed.* (Meg LeFauve)

***I never come back to a blank page; I always finish about halfway through. You make yourself stop, put your pencil down and walk away. You can’t wait to get back because you know what you want to say next.* (Roald DAHL)

***I open a document and start brain dumping anything I can think of, all my questions, all my inspiration, all my ideas… Next I open a new document and do what I call a barf draft… This raw draft is the clay that I’ve pulled up from the riverbed.* (Meg LeFauve)   

***I think creativity is everywhere. For writing, it’s bringing that creativity into structure. That’s where the tricky part begins.* (Tina GORDON)

***I think too many people are too organized; they’ve got it all worked out, instead of hearing their characters first. Get the goop out first, then organize.*** (Alvin SARGENT)   

***I want to put as much as I can into the FIRST draft, to get all the emotion, color, and drama I can put into a story.* (John Michael HAYES) 

*****I win more for one reason. I move fast. By the time most people are done analyzing, I’ve already made THREE mistakes and found a BETTER way.*

*I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I’m afraid of.* (Joss WHEDON)

*I’m not a believer in waiting for the muse. You don’t put yourself in the mood to go to your nine-to-five job, you just go.* (Akiva GOLDSMAN)

*If all feels hopeless, if that famous “inspiration” will not come… go to your desk no matter what your mood, face the icy challenge of the paper – write.* (J.B.PRIESTLEY)

*If I could say anything, it’s KEEP GOING. Don’t go back and fix that scene, that dialogue. Just write the next word.* (Anna Hamilton PHELAN)

***If the book is true, it will find an audience that is meant to read it.* (Wally LAMB)

*****If you have all day to do the job it will probably take you the whole day but if you only have two hours you will find a way to do it in two hours. Give tasks a deadline.*

*****If you are brave enough to say GOODBYE, life will reward you with a new HELLO.* (Paulo COELHO)

***If you’re not prepared to be rejected, don’t try to write films.* (Peter HYAMS)

***If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.* (Ken ROBINSON)
 
***If you are unhappy, you are too high up in your mind.* (Carl JUNG)

*If you can get in touch with who you are as a writer, this is huge. What do you want to write? What’s your point of view? How would you tell that story? Tell those stories in your own echo chamber, and tell many of them.* (Jessica BENDINGER) 

*If you can’t write your message in a sentence, you can’t say it in an hour.* (Dianna Daniels BOOHER)

***If you don’t choose your priorities, the world will choose for you.* (Mark MANSON)

*****If you don’t control your schedule, you don’t control your life.* (Alex HORMOZI)

***If you don’t know what to write, ask your story, ‘What are you trying to tell me?’ Ask that and wait. There will be an answer.* (Kurt BROWN)

*If you don’t like what you’re doing, it’s unlikely anyone else will either. So be sure you are happy with your own work first.* (Billy WILDER)

*If you go in with formula, you come out with formula.* (David SELTZER)

*If you have four ideas, all equally viable, I’d recommend writing the one that has the best ending. That’s the one you’ve thought through the most, and the one you’re least likely to abandon midway.* (John AUGUST) 

***If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.* (Khalil GIBRAN)

***If you trust the moment as you write, it will always bring you what you need.* (Bruce RUBIN)

*If you write one story, it may be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor.* (Edgar Rice BURROUGHS)

*If writing 10 pages is impossible, write 1 page. If writing 1 page is impossible, write a paragraph.* (William MARTELL)

*In my outline, I lay out what needs to happen in the scene, and how it’s part of the overall plot, and what the characters need to get across. So when I start writing a scene, I can get into the meat of it right away.* (Stephany FOLSOME)

***In theory, consistency is about being disciplined, determined, and unwavering. In practice, consistency is about being ADAPTABLE. Don’t have much time? Scale it down. Don’t have much energy? Do the easy version. Find different ways to show up depending on the circumstances. Let your habits change shape to meet the demands of the day. ADAPTABILITY is the way of consistency.* (James CLEAR)

*****It is not luck. It is the sum of relentless, quiet work behind the scenes.*

*****It’s all about habits. At any given time, I’m either trying to pick up a good habit or discard a previous bad habit. It takes time.*

*It’s better to write 5 terrible pages today than not to write anything. If you throw the pages away tomorrow you are still at the same point. If you can rewrite them -- you are ahead.* (William MARTELL)

*It’s in those hours of writing crap where you find a little thing that makes you believe in the process of writing.* (Emma THOMPSON)

*It’s the characters. That’s what I spend most of my time with. Once I’ve done that, characters will speak to plot and story.* (Craig BORTEN)

*Just keep writing and don’t get fixated in any one project for too long. Write your project. Get your feedback, rewrite it, and then send it out.* (Kristen GRAY-ROCKMAKER) 

*Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.* (Ray BRADBURY) 

***Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk to remind yourself that if you don’t write daily, you will get rusty.* (George SINGLETON)

***Keep writing. When no one cares, persist. When things appear to be crumbling, keep at it. When it’s difficult, push through. When you feel alone, listen to the stories in your blood. Just write. The world needs you to tell your stories.* (Gabino IGLESIAS) 

*****Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people.* (Carl JUNG)

*****Life will not give you what you want if you want everything.* (Alex HORMOZI)

*Lucky opportunities are like grains of sand. They drift right past a limp hand, but an active palm can gather whatever is within reach and shape it into a little castle. It is the act of engaging with the material that gives it shape. You have to seize the moment.* (James CLEAR) 

*Make ACT 1 a mystery, ACT 2 a thriller, ACT 3 an action film. Pretty good formula for a commercial genre movie.* (Chris SPARLING)

*Make me forget I’m sitting in a cinema. Make me forget I’m reading a screenplay. Make me feel as if what is happening on screen is happening to ME.* (William MARTELL)

*****Make writing fun. Make moviemaking fun. Take away the pressure of having to make it. The brutal pressure we put on ourselves. Let it go. Make your movies, and don’t worry about Hollywood, and where you’re at in your writing career. You’ll get better results anyway.* (Spyder DOBROFSKY)

*****Many situations in life are similar to going on a hike: the view changes once you start walking. You don’t need all the answers right now. New paths will reveal themselves if you have the courage to get started.* (James CLEAR)

*****Most people don’t design their lives – they react to them. They wake up and instantly dive into chaos: checking their phones, scanning emails, jumping into meetings, responding to texts.* (Tony ROBBINS)

*****Most successful people I’ve met aren’t that smart. They move fast, they take risk, they work a lot.* (Kevin SZABO)

***Need to push through your FIRST draft? Think about and feel the feeling of BEING DONE. Focusing on that feeling is a mental trick to help motivate you to get to the end. Just wanting to feel that for real can help you finish. Try it if you’re having trouble. Happy writing.*** (Jon SHAIVITZ)

***Never take advice from someone who hasn’t achieved the thing they’re advising about. Incredibly underrated hack.* (Codie SANCHEZ)

*****Nobody claps for discipline. Nobody cheers for consistency. But one day, everyone will notice. Show up every day to fix your life. Do it alone. Do it broke. Do it tired. Di it scared. Just do it.*

*****No matter how big or high concept your story is, it only works if there’s a small, personal story at its core.* (Chris SPARLING)

*No matter what you write, good or bad, it’s an improvement to a blank page.* (Chris SPARLING)

*****No one can make you angry. No one can make you upset. That’s a choice you make. You’re responsible for your own emotions.* (Ryan HOLIDAY)   

***One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now.* (Paulo COELHO) 

*Outlining is necessary work, but you have to have something left to discover during the writing or you won’t be inspired.* (Liz W.GARCIA)

*Part of being a good screenwriter is being as concise as possible.* (Eric ROTH)

*People always say, write what you know, and I think it’s write what you know EMOTIONALLY.* (Spenser COHEN)

*People never forget two things, their first love and the money they wasted watching a bad movie.* (Amit KALANTRI)

*People sometimes ask me, ‘Do you meditate?’ And I say, ‘Yeah, I meditate like four hours a day,’ because that’s the time I’m writing.* (Miguel FLATOW)

*Perfectionism… will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.* (Anne LAMOTT)

*Piece by piece is the only way to make a work of art. Every moment makes a contribution, every little detail plays a part. Having just the vision’s no solution, everything depends on execution, putting it together, that’s what counts.* (Stephen SONDHEIM)
 
*PINCH POINTS are turning points that provide new information to the plot that begins setting up the major events. They also act as important foreshadowing for the confrontations that will play out during the climax.* (INK TIPS)

*Plenty of talented people never make it, because they don’t work hard enough or quit when they get rejected. This is a biz of rejection! Get used to it! And GET TO WORK!* (William MARTELL)

***Plot is people. Human emotions and desires founded on the realities of life.* (Leigh BRACKETT) 

*****Scripts are what matter. If you get the foundations right and the right ingredients on top, you stand a shot.* (Tim BEVAN)
*Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.* (Isabel ALLENDE)

*****Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.* (Warren BUFFETT)

*Sometimes you're swinging your way through a FIRST DRAFT like a blind miner with a pick-axe. That's OK. Just get it done.* (Justin MARKS)

*****
Start working like the person you want to become.
Start thinking like the person you want to become.
Start behaving like the person you want to become.
(Stijn NOORMAN)

*Status does not equal a good life.*

***“Stay in the game long enough to get lucky” is underrated advice.*

*Stories can entertain, sometimes teach or argue a point. But for me the essential thing is that they communicate feelings. That they appeal to what we share as human beings across our borders and divides.* (Kazuo ISHIGURO)

*****Transitions between scenes are absolutely essential to a script’s pacing. There should be a rhythmic quality to the writing, where each scene follows an intentionally composed cadence, and then flows or smashes into the next scene with purpose.* (Will SIMMONS)

*The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from.* (Gene FOWLER)

*The difference between Page 2 and Page Nothing is the difference between life and death.* (Aaron SORKIN) 

***The FIRST draft is just you telling yourself the story.* (Terry PRATCHETT)

***The FIRST draft is nothing more than a starting point, so be wrong as fast as you can.* (Andrew STANTON)

***The FIRST draft is the one thing they can’t take away from you, so revel in it.* (Daniel WATERS)

*****The FIRST PARAGRAPH of a screenplay can tell you if they can write. The first FIVE PAGES can tell you if they have a voice.* (Scott FRANK)

*****The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader. The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner. The goal is not to learn an instrument, the goal is to become a musician. Focus on an identity you want to build.* (James CLEAR)

*****The growth you asked for is hidden in the struggle you avoid.* (Sahil BLOOM)

*The highest kind of writing belongs to the realm of grace. You may happen upon it without realizing this is the work through which your whole life will sing. We should always be ready, be humble. Creativity should always be a form of prayer.* (Ben OKRI)

*****The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life to give it away.* (Pablo PICASSO)

*The more complex you make your secondary characters, the more lifelike and involving your story will be.* (Donald MAAS) 

*The more you know about your story’s characters, the more likely their respective voices will emerge.* (Scott MYERS)

*The most important character in your story isn’t the protagonist or hero, isn’t the side kick, isn’t the love interest… It’s the character who brings the conflict.* (William MARTELL) 

*The secret to screenwriting is short sentences, small words, and BIG pictures.* (William KELLEY)

***The stillness that is necessary to write, the act of silencing yourself, your cellphone, silencing everything to think, to bring words -- there is something holy about it.* (Tamara JENKINS)

*The story I am writing exists, written in absolute perfect fashion, some place. All I must do is find it, and copy it.* (Jules RENARD)

***The style of the screenplay can often not just enhance the screenplay, it can move the screenplay forward. It’s not only okay to personalize the style, but something we all need to do.* (Dan GILROY) 
 
***The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.* (Sylvia PLATH)

*There are many writing paths. Here are two of them: “Write what they’re buying or sell them your dream.”* (Scott MYERS)

***Think of your main characters as dinner guests. Would your friends want to spend ten hours with the characters you’ve created? Your characters can be loveable, or they can be evil, but they’d better be compelling.* (Po BRONSON) 

*****To learn well, don’t just read the textbook -- argue with it.* (Richard FEYNMAN)

*****Treat failure like a scientist. Each attempt is an experiment. Each mistake is a clue. You’re not failing. You’re refining.* (James CLEAR)

***You can’t crave growth and then cling to comfort. Pick one.*

*****You don’t hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills.* (Simon SINEK)

*You just finished a new screenplay? Congrats! Now write another… and another… and another… Well, you get the idea. You’ll need multiple solid projects in the marketplace at all times for any chance at success.*

*You’re only going to get noticed by following your own instincts and writing the thing that only you can write.* (Nancy MEYER)

*****Want is plot, need is theme.* (SCREENWRITERSUTOPIA)

*****Wanting a soft life without doing hard life work. That’s not self-love. That’s self-delusion.* (Leila HORMOZI)

***Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now.* (W.H.MURRAY)

*When I want to come up with a new project, I write twenty-five ideas a day. A lot will be bad, but one I can’t stop thinking about.* (Tze CHUN)

*When I write a scene, I write from the inside-out. What is the scene building to, what is the heart of the scene. I’m trying to capture that moment. Then, I’ll build things around how I get there and how I get out of there.* (Craig BORTEN)

*When I write an original story I write about people I know first-hand and situations I’m familiar with. I don’t wrote stories about the nineteenth century.* (Satyajit RAY)

***When making plans, think big. When making progress, think small.* (James CLEAR)

***When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.* (Viktor FRANKLE)

*****When you are committed to the skeleton of a beginning, a middle and an end, the cleverness is in concealing the skeleton.* (Norman KRASNA)

*****Where you fear is, there is your task.* (Carl JUNG)

***Whether you fail or succeed, you only have to start from scratch once. Every time after that you start with experience.* (Alex HORMOZI) 

*While I usually have a vague idea of an ending when I start writing, I don’t want everything set in stone. If you don’t map the story out too ruthlessly, it will reveal itself to you in the writing.* (Theresa REBECK)

*Without a story, you are merely using words to prove you can string them together in logical sentences.* (Anne McCAFFREY)

***Write like you’re on deadline, even if nobody is waiting for your work.* (Elizabeth BERGER)   

***Write what makes you excited and if you’re any good, it will excite somebody else.* (Robert M.KAMEN)

*Write the thing you want to see, but doesn’t exist yet.* (Jon SHAIVITZ)

*Write, write, write -- grocery lists, journal entries, emails, short stories, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Write at every opportunity. That way you develop your writing habit and get to know your voice.* (Elizabeth CHOMKO)

*Writers write while dreamers procrastinate.* (Besa KOSOVA)

****Writing a FIRST draft is like trying to build a house in a strong wind.* (William FAULKNER)

*****Writing is a process of discovery. The biggest enemy is being satisfied. That’s when you have to be most suspicious.* (William BROYLES Jr.) 

*Writing is work. Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don’t whine.* (Margaret ATWOOD)

*Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind.* (Catherine Drinker BOWEN)

*Writing is about struggling through and learning and finding out what it is about writing itself that you really love.* (Laura KASISCHKE)

*Writing is an ongoing process of failure. Like a World War 1 infantry unit, I march forward each day, get shot down. You have to be comfortable failing seven hours out of ten. And you have to do those seven hours to get those other three.* (Mike MILLS)

*Writing is not a matter of time, but a matter of space. If you don’t keep space in your head for writing, you won’t write even if you have the time.* (Katerina STOYKOVA KLEMER)

*Writing needs to be its own reward! Not fame or praise or money -- you don’t control those things. You DO control how much you write every day.* (William MARTELL)

***Writing requires talent and acquires skills. You learn by doing, by making mistakes and then seeing where you went wrong.* (Jeffrey CARVER)

*****You are going to get brutal reviews on your art, on your movies, on your scripts. All you can do is tell your stories. Do the best you can. Collaborate with other people who you find talented, with the same values as you. And try to make the process as fun as you can.* (Spyder DOBROFSKY) 

***You are one-hundred percent successful as soon as you send your project off into the world… regardless of how it is received.* (Rick RUBIN) 

***You can’t make time go faster or success come sooner. The only thing you can control is the next action.* (James CLEAR) 

***You can’t just write a great script and expect a deal anymore. Today, screenwriters need to be their own brand. That means staying visible. Start a Substack. Post videos on TikTok or YouTube about your creative journey. Share advice, updates, behind-the-scene content. Build a following -- not for vanity, but to show you’re serious and consistent. Demonstrating yourself as a professional will go far in earning that title from others.* (IndieWire)   

***You can’t write for other people. You can’t write for the left or the right, this religion or that religion, or this belief or that belief. You have to write the way you see things.* (Ray BRADBURY)   

*****You have to empathize with, even love the villains you write. Otherwise, it just becomes caricature.* (Lisa JOY)

*You know you’re a writer when you get a story idea in the shower and then maniacally repeat it to yourself the rest of the shower so you don’t forget.* (Andy COMPTON)

***You never sell anyone on anything, you only get better at finding people who already want what you’re selling.* (Codie SANCHEZ) 

*You want people to experience a story, not plot. There’s a big difference between the two. You won’t notice structure and page counts when you’re lost in good storytelling. The plot is a canvas. The story is rooted in emotions.* (Anthony GRIECO)

***Your EGO or your GROWTH… Choose.* (Dan MARTELL)

***Your parents aren’t coming to save you. Your siblings aren’t coming to save you. Your friends aren’t coming to save you. Nobody is coming to save you. Save yourself.* (Stijn NOORMAN) 

*****Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.* (Carl JUNG)