If you have an idea that you genuinely think is good, don’t let some idiot talk you out of it.
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.
Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk — away from any open flames — to remind yourself that if you don’t write daily, you will get rusty.
I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.
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.
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.
What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.
Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself.
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.
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.”
No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.
Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.
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.



























