Julia Cameron Quotes about Writing

I learned to just show up at the page and write down what I heard. Writing became more like eavesdropping and less like inventing a nuclear bomb.

Writing is medicine. It is an appropriate antidote to injury. It is an appropriate companion for any difficult change.

But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really play the piano / act / paint / write a decent play?" Yes . . . the same age you will be if you don't.

Writing is like breathing, it's possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what.

Perfectionism has nothing to do with getting it right. It has nothing to do with fixing things. It has nothing to do with standards. Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move forward. It is a loop-an obsessive, debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck in the details of what you are writing or painting or making and to lose sight of the whole.

We should write, above all, because we are writers, whether we call ourselves that or not.

Because if you're trying to write and you have unlimited time, you can procrastinate an unlimited account, but if you have limited time, you rush to the page trying to get something down in the little bit of fragment of time that you have, and you may write a great deal that way.

When we write about our lives we respond to them. As we respond to them we are rendered more fluid, more centered, more agile on our own behalf. We are tendered conscious.

Pivotal to a happy writing life is a practice of daily personal writing.

An artist paints, dances, draws, writes, designs, or acts at the expanding edge of consciousness. We press into the unknown rather than the known. This makes life lovely and lively.

Writing is a combination of being alert to your outer surroundings and alive to your inner reality.

Writing is like listening to a melody line in my head. Note by note, it knows where it wants to go. I follow it and lay it down. I can pare it, shape it, and polish it later...My job is to take down the dribs and drabs - to free-associate, if you will, knowing that the associations have their own plans for where we're going with all this.

Being in the mood to write, like being in the mood to make love, is a luxury that isn't necessary in a long-term relationship. Just as the first caress can lead to a change of heart, the first sentence, however tentative and awkward, can lead to a desire to go just a little further.

Just as a good rain clears the air, a good writing day clears the psyche.

We have this idea that we need to be in the mood to write. We don't.

we should write because writing brings clarity and passion to the act of living. writing is sensual, experiential, grounding. we should write because writing is good for the soul. we should write because writing yields us a body of work, a felt path through the world we live in.

Writing responds well to some gentle scheduling. A day job not only promotes solvency, it promotes creativity as well.

We don't often talk about the fact that writing is all about rhythm. When you get too up in your head, you can lose a lot of your writing. Sometimes what a writer really needs to do is go dancing.

I started writing morning pages just to keep my hand in, you know, just because I was a writer and I didn't know what else to do but write. And then one day as I was writing, a character came sort of strolling in and I realized, Oh my God, I don't have to be just a screenwriter. I can write novels.

when I talk about a writing life, I'm talking about a life in which writing is the dominant response to living.

Writing-and this is the big secret-wants to be written. Writing loves a writer the way God loves a true devotee. Writing will fill your heart if you let it. It will fill your pages and help to fill your life.

Writing just for the hell of it is heaven.

We waste a lot of time and a lot of talent trying to write for the common reader, whom we will never meet. Instead we should be writing for our ideal reader.

Did you write today? Then you're a writer today.

We all have time to write. We have time to write the minute we are willing to write badly, to chase a dead end, to scribble a few words, to write for the hell of it instead of for the perfect and polished result.