Have you heard of reader's block? - blog | 888-743-9939

Blog

You’ve heard of writer’s block. But have you heard of reader’s block?

August 5, 2019May 9, 2025 639

I found this in the August 2nd, 2019, New York Times. Fun reading…if you’re not suffering from reader’s block:

Reader’s block article

I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.

Tom Clancy

A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it to be God.

Sidney Sheldon

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.

Truman Capote Quote

If you have an idea that you genuinely think is good, don’t let some idiot talk you out of it.

Stan Lee

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

G.K. Chesterton

The road to ignorance is paved with good editors.

George Bernard Shaw

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Robert A. Heinlein

Critics are people who sit on the mountaintop and look down on the battlefield. When the fighting is finished, they take it upon themselves to come down from the mountain and shoot the survivors.

Robert Altman

Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.

Michael Burke

Just don’t be boring!

Robert Liebmann

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

Oscar Wilde

The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.

John Campbell

It’s an accepted fact that all writers are crazy; even the normal ones are weird.

William Goldman

Ever heard of a carpenter not going to work because he has “carpenter’s block”? If a writer can’t write, it’s because he doesn’t really want to, he isn’t ready to get it on paper or he’s just plain lazy.

Chet Cunningham

I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.

John Irving

There are three primal urges in human beings: Food, sex, and rewriting someone else’s play.

Romulus Linney

What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.

Jeanette Walls

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.

Christopher Hampton

It is only natural to pattern yourself after someone. But you can’t just copy someone. If you like someone’s work, the important thing is to be exposed to everything that person has been exposed to.

Bob Dylan

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.