by Elton Gahr

Created on: May 31, 2009   Last Updated: June 02, 2009

As a writer starting out it is easy to fall into the us and them mentality of well known authors. We imagine that they somehow know the great secrets of writing. Perhaps they have discovered some ancient tablet with the 14 words that will make anyone fall in love with their manuscript forever, or perhaps they were given some special inspiration from the gods. But the truth is that they begin with the same blank pages that we do. So what is it that these masters of the craft can teach us so that we can take those some tools and create something worthwhile?

The first question we must consider is why we write? What makes writing important? What makes it worthwhile?

You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke. ~Arthur Polotnik

If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad. ~Lord Byron

Ink on paper is as beautiful to me as flowers on the mountains; God composes, why shouldn't we? ~Audra Foveo-Alba

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen. But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any way you can. ~Samuel Lover, Handy Andy, 1842

Once we understand and feel some of the compulsion that they felt to write the question becomes what to write about. These great names have struggled with the same thing and here are a few of the things that they came up with. They might not be specific but they will be useful.

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. ~Toni Morrison

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. ~Anas Nin

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~William Wordsworth

Perhaps one of the most important lessons that writers who are successful learn is the work that goes into creating true beauty. Here is what the masters have to say about the work of writing and editing.

There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. ~Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith

Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter. ~James Michener

And finally there is the hope of making money. They understood that desire well too and here is the best piece of advice on how to get rich writing.

If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves. ~Don Marquis

Most important as you look at these quotes is to understand that these are people who, in many cases, had less access to information and good writing than you do. And as you strive to see farther than even these did remember one of the most important quotes of all time, not on the subject of writing specifically but about life and the importance of learning from these giants.

"If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants." Isaac Newton.

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