Selected quotations from women writers on the process of writing, gathered over 24 years of reading and organized into the categories Keeping At It, Feeling Good, Being Female, Good Writing, Technique, Below the Surface, and Praise and Fame. Thoughtful and inspiring encouragement for all writers.

From Women on Writing: 

The thing about writing is not to talk, but to do it; no matter how bad or even mediocre it is, the process and production is the thing, not the sitting and theorizing about how one should write ideally, or how well one could write if one really wanted to or had the time.

Sylvia Plath

You get no writing done at all if you sit at a table with a view. You’d spend the whole time watching the birds or thinking about what you would like to be doing out of doors, instead of flogging yourself to work out of sheer boredom.

Mary Stewart
Thornyhold