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Video: When to use rain, rein and reign.

It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil, trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.

William Faulkner

Don’t annoy an author, you’ll end up in their book and you won’t look good.

Lawrence Wray

A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it to be God.

Sidney Sheldon

Editor: A person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.

Elbert Hubbard

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.

John Campbell

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.”

Neil Gaiman

No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.

E. B. White

Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.

Michael Burke

I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.

Tom Clancy

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.

John Legend

Every writer with half a brain knows to surround himself or herself with editors who are smarter, far more articulate and infinitely better looking.

Chris Claremont

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

Thomas Jefferson

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.

Robert Benchley

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.

Robert McKee

The character that lasts is an ordinary guy with some extraordinary qualities.

Raymond Chandler

If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it’s to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.

Jim Morrison

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.

Gloria Steinem

You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won’t be able to take a break from being a writer.

Stephen Leigh

Just don’t be boring!

Robert Liebmann

Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.