First Draft Quotes

91 quotes by 83 authors

I don't fiddle or edit or change while I'm going through that first draft. — Nora Roberts
I generally write a first draft that's pretty lean. Just get the story down. — Nora Roberts
It can take years. With the first draft, I just write everything. With the second draft, it becomes so depressing for me, because I realize… — David Sedaris
Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it's where the game is won or lost. The idea is hard to accept. We all have emotional… — William Zinsser
It's one of the things writing students don't understand. They write a first draft and are quite disappointed, or often should be disappointed. They don't… — Elizabeth Hardwick
Never be satisfied with a first draft. In fact, never be satisfied with your own stuff at all, until you're certain it's as good as… — Rose Tremain
Getting that first draft out is a horribly hard grind, but that (perversely) is where the joy of it lies. — Jonathan Stroud
Some writers find that they don't know their themes until they've finished the first draft (I am one). They then rewrite with an eye toward… — Nancy Kress
For me the writing, when I'm going to direct it myself, is really just the first draft, and I don't change it very much; I… — John Sayles
So in the first draft, I'm inventing people and place with a broad schematic idea of what's going to happen. In the process, of course,… — Peter Carey
The first draft of everything, I write longhand. One of the nice things about that is that it makes you keep going. If you write… — Jonathan Dee
I revise constantly, as I go along and then again after I've finished a first draft. Few of my novels contain a single sentence that… — Michael Cunningham
I try to write everyday. I do that much better over here than when I'm teaching. I always rewrite, usually fairly close-on which is to… — Marilyn Hacker
News is the first draft of history. — Ben Bradlee
Writing is so hard.... The first draft writing is so hard that sometimes in the beginning, before the work itself takes over, carrying you on… — Sophy Burnham
I tend to write things seven times before I show them to my editor. I write them seven times, then I take them on tour,… — David Sedaris
The research is the easiest. The outline is the most fun. The first draft is the hardest, because every word of the outline has to… — Ken Follett
All the revision in the world will not save a bad first draft: for the architecture of the thing comes, or fails to come, in… — T.E. Lawrence
Everything you've ever read of mine is first-draft. This is one of the peculiarities of the comics field. By the time you're working on chapter… — Alan Moore
In my office in Florida I have, I think, 30 manuscript piles around the room. Some are screenplays or comic books or graphic novels. Some… — James Patterson

Who Wrote These First Draft Quotes

83 authors contributed a total of 91 First Draft Quotes, led by these top contributors: