It’s a page on this website, located here. I’ve been collecting informative and witty comments from writers for years. Read More...
A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer.
My aim is to put down what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way I can tell it.
Every writer with half a brain knows to surround himself or herself with editors who are smarter, far more articulate and infinitely better looking.
Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.
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.
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.
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
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.
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.
If you have an idea that you genuinely think is good, don’t let some idiot talk you out of 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.
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.”
The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

























