Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness, but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.
Yes, it's hard to write, but it's harder not to.
You can fire your secretary, divorce your spouse, abandon your children. But they remain your co-authors forever.
You can never correct your work well until you have forgotten it.
You don't write because you want to say something; you write because you've got something to say.
You enter a state of controlled passivity, you relax your grip and accept that even if your declared intention is to justify the ways of God to man, you might end up interesting your readers rather more in Satan.
You expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analogous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simple, but nourishing to the imagination. Hold the philosophy, hold the adjectives, just give us a plain subject and verb and perhaps a wholesome, nonfattening adverb or two.
You must not suppose, because I am a man of letters, that I never tried to earn an honest living.
You must often make erasures if you mean to write what is worthy of being read a second time; and don't labor for the admiration of the crowd, but be content with a few choice readers.
You who write, choose a subject suited to your abilities and think long and hard on what your powers are equal to and what they are unable to perform.
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