Quotes on Writing | Writing Forward

What is Poetry?

Prose Bewitched “Poetry is prose bewitched, a music made of visual thoughts, the sound of an idea.” – Mina Loy When I read Mina Loy’s description of poetry as “prose bewitched,” I felt like someone had captured the true essence of poetry for the first time. We often struggle to define abstract or obtuse concepts….Read More

Share Your Writing

Putting yourself out there isn’t easy. When you share your writing, you open it up to criticism. What if people don’t like it? What if it gets negative reviews? What if nobody reads it? I share my writing all the time, thanks to this blog. In the early days, shortly after I launched Writing Forward,…Read More

The Only Two Writing Tips You’ll Ever Need: Read and Write

I love collecting writing tips. You never know when you’re going to stumble across a golden nugget of wisdom that will make your writing richer and more vibrant. One of the reasons I started this website was so that I could share the many valuable tips that I’ve collected over the years. I figure that…Read More

Writing Tips: Write Now!

“A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.” – E. B. White What are your ideal writing conditions? Is it quiet, or are there stimulating background noises? Are you alone, curled up in a chair with a pen and a notebook, or are…Read More

Poetry is Felt Rather Than Seen

What is Art? What is Poetry? For centuries, people have been asking what is art? Is art a question? An answer? An expression? A statement? Maybe it’s sheer entertainment. It’s a question we must answer for ourselves, especially artists and writers. I believe the best art entertains while it provokes thought or emotion, but that’s…Read More

A Generation of Writers

“Only a generation of readers will spawn a generation of writers.” — Steven Spielberg Steven Spielberg is one of my favorite storytellers. He and I have something in common: we were both English majors! He knows what he’s talking about when he emphasizes the importance of reading. The simplicity and elegance of Spielberg’s remark makes…Read More

Learning to Write

We tend to look at successful people and believe they made it overnight, and that’s not limited to how we see authors. We see wildly successful people enjoying the fruits of their labor, but what we don’t see is the labor itself — the struggles and failures they endured to get to where they are…Read More

How to Write Good Books

We’re all influenced by the world around us. Natalie Goldberg’s quote on reading good books is a reminder that whatever we take in will affect whatever we put out: “If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you.” I believe this is a truth that goes beyond writing. When…Read More

You Can’t Edit a Blank Page

They say it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. We can say the same thing about writing: it’s better to write badly than to write nothing at all. Jodi Picoult offers some insight that summarizes this idea in a clear, concise manner: “You can always edit a bad…Read More

Quotes on Writing: Robert Frost on Emotions and Poetry

“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” ― Robert Frost Emotions are fickle. Sometimes they’re clear and brilliant: we’re happy, sad, frustrated, or angry. But emotions can also be complicated, layered, and conflicting. Sure, we’re happy, but we’re also kind of annoyed about something. We’re sad, but…Read More