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

—  Julia Cameron

Source: The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Writing is like breathing, it's possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what." by Julia Cameron?
Julia Cameron photo
Julia Cameron 45
American writer 1948

Related quotes

“… it's not just learning that's important. It's learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things that matters.”

Norton Juster (1929) American children's writer, academic, and architect

Variant: …it’s not just learning that’s important. It’s learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things that matters.

Anaïs Nin photo

“If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica
John Banville photo

“Doing what you do well is death. Your duty is to keep trying to do things that you don't do well, in the hope of learning.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

John Banville, The Art of Fiction No. 200 (2009)

P.G. Wodehouse photo

“What do ties matter, Jeeves, at a time like this?'
There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

“I'm looking for what might be called a body language. One thing I do is stick a vibrator up my cunt and start writing -- writing from the point of orgasm and losing control of the language and seeing what that's like.”

Kathy Acker (1947–1997) American novelist, playwright, essayist, and poet
Mark Rothko photo

“I do not believe that there was ever a question of being abstract or representational. It is really a matter of ending this silence and solitude, of breathing, and stretching one's arms again transcendental experiences became possible.”

Mark Rothko (1903–1970) American painter

in The Romantics were prompted, essay by Mark Rothko, 1947/48; as quoted in Possibilities, vol 1, no. 1, winter 1947-48, Kate Rothko Prizel and Christophor Rothko.
1940's

Ben Harper photo

“Where did you learn to do that so well?
Where did you learn to do that so well?
I guess that would be like kiss and tell.
If it's a secret, why did you show me?”

Ben Harper (1969) singer-songwriter and musician

Suzie Blue.
Song lyrics, Burn to Shine (1999)

Jonas Salk photo

“Risks, I like to say, always pay off. You learn what to do, or what not to do.”

Jonas Salk (1914–1995) Inventor of polio vaccine

Academy of Achievement interview (1991)

Democritus photo

“Of practical wisdom these are the three fruits: to deliberate well, to speak to the point, to do what is right.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Fragments

Patrick Rothfuss photo

“My point is that doing something like this takes more time that writing another shitty, predictable Lord of the Rings knockoff.”

Patrick Rothfuss (1973) American fantasy writer

On the progress of The Wise Man's Fear in "Concerning the Release of Book Two" (26 February 2009) http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2009/02/concerning-the-release-of-book-two/
Official site
Context: My book is different.
In case you hadn't noticed, the story I'm telling is a little different. It's a little shy on the Aristotelian unities. It doesn't follow the classic Hollywood three-act structure. It's not like a five-act Shakespearean play. It's not like a Harlequin romance.
So what *is* the structure then? Fuck if I know. That's part of what's taking me so long to figure out. As far as I can tell, my story is part autobiography, part hero's journey, part epic fantasy, part travelogue, part faerie tale, part coming of age story, part romance, part mystery, part metafictional-nested-story-frame-tale-something-or-other.
I am, quite frankly, making this up as I go. If I get it right, I get something like The Name of the Wind. Something that makes all of us happy.
But if I fuck it up, I'll end up with a confusing tangled mess of a story.
Now I'm not trying to claim that I'm unique in this. That I'm some lone pioneer mapping the uncharted storylands. Other authors do it too. My point is that doing something like this takes more time that writing another shitty, predictable Lord of the Rings knockoff.
Sometimes I think it would be nice to write a that sort of book. It would be nice to be able to use those well-established structures like a sort of recipe. A map. A paint-by-numbers kit.
It would be so much easier, and quicker. But it wouldn't be a better book. And it's not really the sort of book I want to write.

Related topics