Words matter. These are the best Professional Writer Quotes from famous people such as Len Deighton, Zoya Akhtar, Chris Bohjalian, John Green, Richard Bach, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Anyone can write one book: even politicians do it. Starting a second book reveals an intention to be a professional writer.
So at 19, I faced my first blank page as a professional writer.
My personal opinion is that, if you’re a professional writer, that you do have quotas. So every day I do try to write 800-1,200 words. I don’t always achieve it, and the reality is that a lot of the words I write will end up on the cutting-room floor.
Chicago is the Great American City, and it was really great to live there during a time of economic expansion and opportunity and growth. I felt like I was living at the center of the world. Unlike New York, no one expects you to be a professional writer.
A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.
I’ve heard some writers say things like, ‘Well, I’m a professional writer. I only start books I know I can finish.’ I look at it maybe the other way: I only want to write books I’m not sure I can write.
The life of the professional writer – like that of any freelance, whether she be a plumber or a podiatrist – is predicated on willpower. Without it there simply wouldn’t be any remuneration, period.
Don’t let anyone discourage you from writing. If you become a professional writer, there are plenty of editors, reviewers, critics, and book buyers to do that.
I think my first story sold for $550. This was in 1954, and it seemed like quite a lot of money, and I said to myself, ‘Hey, I’m a professional writer now.’
One of the ironies of being a professional writer is that, if you are even moderately successful, the very traits that let you succeed as a writer are not much help when the time comes to head out as ‘The Author.’
I never intended to be a professional writer; as the story developed, the one thing I had in my hopes was that this would be something tangible to separate me from the nameless, numbered masses.
I’m not like a professional writer with professional skills. Songs kind of come into my head the same way they did when I was a kid. I say I’m an overgrown kindergarten kid. I work on songs.
Being a professional writer is not an easy way to make a living.
I’ve been a professional writer for 20 years, and there are contours in that time, crescents and troughs.
For the professional writer, stories must be presented as a series of individual scenes, each one dramatized with dialogue and telling descriptions of who is present and what they’re all doing.
