So you need to deliver a speech, let’s say 20 minutes long, to salespeople. You’ve got a new product ready to push out to Read More...
Socially, a journalist fits in somewhere between a whore and a bartender. But spiritually he stands beside Galileo. He knows the world is round.
Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.
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.
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.
My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.
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.
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 get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop.
Reading and weeping opens the door to one’s heart, but writing and weeping opens the window to one’s soul.
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.
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
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.
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
When writing a novel, that’s pretty much entirely what life turns into: “House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1,500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.”

























