Janet Reid is a literary agent and she has a blog. It seems that many publishers, traditional as well as publish-on-demand, are Read More...
Reading and weeping opens the door to one’s heart, but writing and weeping opens the window to one’s soul.
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.
Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.
Every writer with half a brain knows to surround himself or herself with editors who are smarter, far more articulate and infinitely better looking.
The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
Anecdotes don’t make good stories. Generally, I dig down underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people thought their anecdotes were about.
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.
I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last.
A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer.
I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.
Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
My aim is to put down what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way I can tell it.
The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.

























