{"id":20699,"date":"2019-05-30T14:02:39","date_gmt":"2019-05-30T18:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wyliecomm.com\/?page_id=20699"},"modified":"2023-05-12T12:14:13","modified_gmt":"2023-05-12T16:14:13","slug":"purpose-of-freewriting","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.wyliecomm.com\/writing-tips\/writing-process\/effective-writing-process\/purpose-of-freewriting\/","title":{"rendered":"Quotes on the purpose of freewriting"},"content":{"rendered":"

What writers & others say<\/h2>\n

\"Purpose

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\u201cWhenever I have endured or accomplished some difficult task \u2014 such as watching television, going out socially or sleeping \u2014 I always look forward to rewarding myself with the small pleasure of getting back to my typewriter and writing something.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Isaac Asimov, science fiction author<\/h6>\n
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\u201cThe beautiful part of writing is that you don\u2019t have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Robert Cormier, American author, columnist and reporter<\/h6>\n
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\u201cI write at high speed because boredom is bad for my health.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Noel Coward, English actor, playwright and composer<\/h6>\n
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\u201cPlanning to write is not writing. Outlining \u2026 researching \u2026 talking to people about what you\u2019re doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 E.L. Doctorow, author of\u00a0Ragtime<\/em> and other critically acclaimed novels<\/h6>\n
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\u201cGet it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it\u2019s the only way you can do anything really good.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2013 William Faulkner, American writer and Nobel Prize laureate<\/h6>\n
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\u201cNotes are like Velcro. As you try to skim them, they ensnare you, and pretty soon you can\u2019t see the story for the details. The story is not in my notes. The story is in my head.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Jane Harrigan, professor at the University of New Hampshire and author of\u00a0The Editorial Eye<\/em><\/h6>\n
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\u201cRoy Peter Clark \u2026 divides writers into \u2018planners\u2019 and \u2018plungers.\u2019 Roy\u2019s a plunger. So sometimes he just jumps into a topic and starts writing whatever comes to mind. He calls that first round of writing a \u2018vomit draft.\u2019\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Jack Hart, managing editor of the\u00a0Oregonian<\/em>, and author of\u00a0A Writer\u2019s Coach<\/em><\/h6>\n
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\u201cApply the seat of your pants to the seat of a chair\u201d and write.<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Ernest Hemingway, Nobel Prize-winning novelist, on his first rule for writers<\/h6>\n
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\u201cThe first draft of anything is shit.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Ernest Hemingway, Nobel Prize-winning novelist<\/h6>\n
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\u201cI always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Ernest Hemingway, Nobel Prize-winning novelist<\/h6>\n
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\u201cA radio talk-show host asked me how I wrote. My reply \u2014 \u2018One word at a time\u2019 \u2014 seemingly left him without a reply. I think he was trying to decide whether or not I was joking. I wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Stephen King, prolific novelist, in\u00a0On Writing<\/em><\/h6>\n
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\u201cSHITTY FIRST DRAFT.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Annie Lamott, author of\u00a0Bird by Bird<\/em>, on what she types on the top of the page to relieve blank-page anxiety<\/h6>\n
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\u201cYou write by sitting down and writing. There\u2019s no particular time or place \u2014 you suit yourself, your nature. How one works, assuming he\u2019s disciplined, doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Bernard Malamud, author of\u00a0The Natural<\/em>\u00a0and other novels<\/h6>\n
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\u201cOne of the most difficult things is the first paragraph. I have spent many months on a first paragraph, and once I get it, the rest just comes out very easily.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nobel Prize-winning novelist, author of\u00a0One Hundred Years of Solitude<\/em><\/h6>\n
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\u201cI believe in writing your way to the end. Write a sloppy first draft so you can see the shape of the thing. All you ask of the second draft is that it be better than the first.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 James Magnuson, novelist, playwright and TV writer<\/h6>\n
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\u201cI never think at all when I write. Nobody can do two things at the same time and do them both well.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Don Marquis, American humorist, journalist and author<\/h6>\n
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\u201cThere is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 H.L. Menchen, American journalist, essayist, magazine editor and satirist<\/h6>\n
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\u201cIt is important to maintain the voice and flow of the story. The best way to do this is to interrupt your draft when you know what is coming next, what you are saying, and how it may be said. That way, when you sit back down to write, you\u2019ll be able to pick up where you left off.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Donald M. Murray, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, in\u00a0Writing to Deadline: The Journalist at Work<\/em><\/h6>\n
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\u201cPut your notes aside and write the first draft from memory. Follow the instinctive flow of the story so that you can make unexpected connections as well as expected ones. Check your notes afterward for accuracy, but you will find that what you forget probably is best forgotten, and what you remembered in the flow of writing is what needs to be remembered.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Donald M. Murray, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, in\u00a0Writing to Deadline: The Journalist at Work<\/em><\/h6>\n
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\u201cYou can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2015\u00a0Jodi Picoult, American writer<\/h6>\n
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\u201cThe first draft is just you telling yourself the story.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2015\u00a0Terry Pratchett, English author<\/h6>\n
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\u201dWe make a mistake when we\u2019re younger. We feel compelled to hit a home run in the very first sentence. So we spend a lot of time staring at the typewriter. I\u2019ll settle for a quiet single, or even a long foul, anything that gets me started.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Saul Pett, reporter and writer for The Associated Press<\/h6>\n
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\u201cIf writing a book is impossible, write a chapter. If writing a chapter is impossible, write a page. If writing a page is impossible, write a paragraph. If writing a paragraph is impossible, write a sentence. If writing a sentence is impossible, write a word and teach yourself everything there is to know about that word and then write another, connected word and see where the connection leads.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer prize-winning author of\u00a0The Making of the Atomic Bomb<\/em><\/h6>\n
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\u201cWrite your first draft with your heart. Rewrite with your head.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2013 Mike Rich, American screenwriter<\/h6>\n
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\u201cDon\u2019t fight it, write it.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Chip Scanlan, senior faculty-writing, The Poynter Institute,
\non the note he taped to his old IBM Selectric typewriter<\/h6>\n
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\u201cLeave the judging \u2019til later.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Chip Scanlan, senior faculty-writing, The Poynter Institute, on the note he taped to his computer<\/h6>\n
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\u201cThe things that I have written fastest have always pleased the most.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Lord Chesterfield, aka Phillip Stanhope, British statesman and man of letters<\/h6>\n
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\u201cI wrote another five hundred words. Can I have another cookie?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Writer to his wife in a Mick Stevens cartoon for\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em><\/h6>\n
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\u201cYou do it wrong first.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Dick Todd, former senior editor at\u00a0The Atlantic Monthly<\/em>, on how to write right<\/h6>\n
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