
Is the customer always right? Of course not. This is not 1950. Are we word slaves at the service of tyrannical bosses? Nope. If Read More...
Is the customer always right? Of course not. This is not 1950.
Are we word slaves at the service of tyrannical bosses? Nope.
If somebody calls and wants us to essentially take dictation, I’ll refer them to a typist.
If someone tells me they’ve completed their first screenplay and it’s brilliant, and all they need is a little editing and a polish, I warn them. “Stop right there. You may think it’s brilliant, but a professional screenwriter will probably think otherwise. If I send your work to one of my people, I guarantee you will hear things you don’t want to hear.”
We’re not trying to beat you up. We want you to succeed, and we know what needs to be done to achieve that. And we know if you’re new at this that you’ve made mistakes that will prevent your work from ever being filmed.
Don’t sabotage yourself.
Let’s pretend you have a basic understanding of how the mechanical innards of a car work. You take the car to a mechanic because it’s become sluggish. The mechanic will want to know the symptoms; that will help his diagnosis. But that mechanic will not appreciate being told what to do by an amateur.
If you want the job done right, trust your professional.
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.
No writer has ever yet been known to hang himself as long as he had another chapter left.
The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
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.
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.
My aim is to put down what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way I can tell it.
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.”
I haven’t got 10 rules that guarantee success, though I promise I’d share them if I did. The truth is that I found success by stumbling off alone in a direction most people thought was a dead end, breaking all the 1990s shibboleths about children’s books in the process.
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.
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.
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 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.
In Hollywood, the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can’t read. If they could read their stuff, they’d stop writing.
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.

























