Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Writing

"There's nothing harder to estimate than [the value of] a writer's time, nothing harder to keep track of. There are moments - moments of sustained creation - when his time is fairly valuable; and there are hours and hours when a writer's time isn't worth the paper he is not writing anything on."

From "Security," by E.B. White, December 1938. Republished in One Man's Meat pp. 13-14.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i believe this is true for graphic designers, too. :) (can you tell i'm procrastinating by catching up on your blog?)

Marti said...

Yay, Carissa has a blog! I'll go leave you a comment too. But here's something else this brought to mind, so I'll post it here:

“For me, the answer to the question ‘When do you write?’ is easy: I write when I’m avoiding some other important task. For example, this essay is being written on April 23, and my taxes are not yet done. I also write when the bathroom needs cleaning, when the garden needs weeding, or when I’m skipping an important meeting... The best place to write, I’ve discovered, is parking lots. The parking lot of the gym is exceptionally good. I can avoid working out and begin a poem at the same time.”

– Alison Luterman, “The Secret of My Success,” in The Sun, Nov. 2003