Blogs are important for a couple of reasons. First, it’s a great way to communicate with your customers. An interesting, ongoing Read More...
Books aren’t written, they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.
Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.
Do not place a photograph of your favorite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.
I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.
I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop.
You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won’t be able to take a break from being a writer.
It is only natural to pattern yourself after someone. But you can’t just copy someone. If you like someone’s work, the important thing is to be exposed to everything that person has been exposed to.
It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.
Ever heard of a carpenter not going to work because he has “carpenter’s block”? If a writer can’t write, it’s because he doesn’t really want to, he isn’t ready to get it on paper or he’s just plain lazy.
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
The fact is, I don’t know where my ideas come from. Nor does any writer. The only real answer is to drink way too much coffee and buy yourself a desk that doesn’t collapse when you beat your head against it.
Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.
If you haven’t got an idea, start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you’ll only have to throw away the first three pages.
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.

























