Drafts Quotes

“This afternoon, burn down the house. Tomorrow, pour critical water upon the simmering coals. Time enough to think and cut and rewrite tomorrow. But today-explode-fly-apart-disintegrate! The other six or seven drafts are going to be pure torture. So why not enjoy the first draft, in the hope that your joy will seek and find others in the world who, by reading your story, will catch fire, too?”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You

“Books and drafts mean something quite different for different thinkers. One collects in a book the lights he was able to steal and carry home swiftly out of the rays of some insight that suddenly dawned on him, while another thinker offers us nothing but shadows - images in black and grey of what had built up in his soul the day before.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs

“I work hard, I work very hard. All the books at least 30 revisions.”
― Ha Jin

“Your first draft is a petulant teenager, sure it knows best, adamant that its Mother is wrong. Your third draft has emerged from puberty, realising that its Mother was right about everything.”
― Angeline Trevena

“I do three drafts handwritten and then it's typed up... They are different from each other, they are hopefully improvements in the sense you're going back over something. The first time you write it, it's the first thing that you can think. The second time you're trying to shape the dialogue, helping the characters. The third time you're doing it because you want the words to sound nice, hopefully making the prose better, making it more fun to read, making the jokes funnier and the scary bits scarier.”
― Clive Barker

“Some drafts are always more precious than sent emails.”
― Saravana Kumar Murugan

“Why are kids like me always being drafted into wars we didn't start?”
― G. Willow Wilson, Ms. Marvel, Vol. 2: Generation Why

“Literary Agent: “I meant manuscript wise.”
Tina: “Ohh. Um, yes. I’ve brought a few with me, just some rough drafts. (shuffle, shuffle) You might say something of an experiment.”
― Christina Engela, Innocent Minds

“Sometimes writing like having a plant that never gets watered and expecting it to blossom.”
― Nanette L. Avery