#writing

"Good description is a learned skill, one of the prime reasons why you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. It’s not just a question of how-to, you see; it’s also a question of how much to. Reading will help you answer how much, and only reams of writing will help you with the how. You can learn only by doing."

"... a good idea always attracts other good ideas."

"Writing comes more easily if you have something to say."

"All I'm writing is just what I feel, that's all. I just keep it almost naked. And probably the words are so bland."

"A woman knows very well that, though a wit sends her his poems, praises her judgment, solicits her criticism, and drinks her tea, this by no means signifies that he respects her opinions, admires her understanding, or will refuse, though the rapier is denied him, to run through the body with his pen."

"I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell."

"Read – and be curious. And if somebody says to you: 'Things are this way. You can't change it' - don't believe a word."

"Writing simply means no dependent clauses, no dangling things, no flashbacks, and keeping the subject near the predicate. We throw in as many fresh words we can get away with. Simple, short sentences don't always work. You have to do tricks with pacing, alternate long sentences with short, to keep it vital and alive.... Virtually every page is a cliffhanger--you've got to force them to turn it."~"

"The shame of being a man - is there any better reason to write?"

"Try looking at your mind as a wayward puppy that you are trying to paper train. You don't drop-kick a puppy into the neighbor's yard every time it piddles on the floor. You just keep bringing it back to the newspaper."

"I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read."

"The first draft of anything is shit."

"I don't write about what I know: I write in order to find out what I know."

"If there's a will, there's a way!I feel larger than LIFE--and look up to the stars who shine down on me and have become my own personal cheerleaders....as my fingers tap on my computer late into the night.."

"What cannot be said above all must not be silenced but written."

"Behind the perfection of a man's style, must lie the passion of a man's soul."

"My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water."

"You're miserable, edgy and tired. You're in the perfect mood for journalism."

"A novel rough draft is like bread dough; you need to beat the crap out of it for it to rise."

"But that initial, comet-blazing-across-the-sky, Big Idea is only the beginning. Each book is composed of a mosaic of thousands of little ideas, ideas that invariably come to me at two in the morning when my alarm is set for seven."