I’m envious of this fellow’s literary output. Chet Cunningham died March 14th, 2017, at age 88. He wrote — and this Read More...
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.
To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I’m writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I’m going to play for the opening sequence.
A true author, no matter the medium, is an artist with godlike knowledge of his subject, and the proof of his authorship is that his pages smack of authority.
Reading and weeping opens the door to one’s heart, but writing and weeping opens the window to one’s soul.
If you have an idea that you genuinely think is good, don’t let some idiot talk you out of it.
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.
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.
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.
If the sex scene doesn’t make you want to do it — whatever it is they’re doing — it hasn’t been written right.
No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.
Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.
Editor: A person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.
No writer has ever yet been known to hang himself as long as he had another chapter left.
























