"There is no rule on how to..." - Quote by Ernest Hemingway
There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.
More by Ernest Hemingway
“There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.”
“A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.”
“There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes.”
More on Writing
“A man who is not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He has no clear idea of his story; in fact he has no story. He merely has some people in his mind, and an incident or two, also a locality, and he trusts he can plunge those people into those incidents with interesting results.”
“The great thing is to last and get your work done and see and hear and learn and understand; and write when there is something that you know; and not before, and not too damned much after.”
“It was a fatal day when the public discovered that the pen is mightier than the paving-stone and can be made as offensive as a brickbat.”
More on Process
“The story was writing itself and I was having a hard time keeping up with it.”
“If one knows exactly what is going to be done, why do it?”
“I write quickly with a sense of urgency. I don't edit myself out of existence, meaning I'll try to write 50 or 60 pages before I start rereading, revising and editing. That just helps with my confidence.”