"Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing"
About this Quote
Doctorow’s line is a cold splash of water on the cottage industry of productive procrastination. It’s not anti-planning; it’s anti-theater. By stacking “outlining, researching, talking” into a neat little parade of respectable activities, he names the rituals writers use to feel serious without risking the only thing that counts: pages that can be judged. The repetition is the point. “Writing is writing” lands like a gavel, stripping away excuses and returning the work to its blunt, unglamorous core.
The intent is disciplinary, almost moral. Doctorow isn’t policing process so much as protecting it from self-deception. Prewriting can be necessary, even beautiful, but it’s also where ego hides safest: in the promise of a book rather than the embarrassment of a bad paragraph. His phrasing exposes a social loophole, too. You can tell people you’re “working on a novel” for years and receive applause for the ambition. Actually writing means producing something imperfect, something that might disappoint you and others.
Context matters: Doctorow came up in a mid-century literary culture that prized the finished artifact and the daily grind behind it, long before “content creation” turned preparation into a performance and “research” into an endless browser-tab halo. Read now, the quote doubles as a critique of modern creative identity: the temptation to curate the image of a writer instead of enduring the isolation of being one. Doctorow’s subtext is unsentimental but oddly liberating: stop auditioning. Put words down.
The intent is disciplinary, almost moral. Doctorow isn’t policing process so much as protecting it from self-deception. Prewriting can be necessary, even beautiful, but it’s also where ego hides safest: in the promise of a book rather than the embarrassment of a bad paragraph. His phrasing exposes a social loophole, too. You can tell people you’re “working on a novel” for years and receive applause for the ambition. Actually writing means producing something imperfect, something that might disappoint you and others.
Context matters: Doctorow came up in a mid-century literary culture that prized the finished artifact and the daily grind behind it, long before “content creation” turned preparation into a performance and “research” into an endless browser-tab halo. Read now, the quote doubles as a critique of modern creative identity: the temptation to curate the image of a writer instead of enduring the isolation of being one. Doctorow’s subtext is unsentimental but oddly liberating: stop auditioning. Put words down.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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