More writing wisdom!

A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it. Mark Twain

We write by the light of every story we have ever read. Richard Peck

A writer's job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as memories John Irving

I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity. Edgar Allan Poe

My books are water; those of great geniuses are wine. Everybody drinks water.  Mark Twain

More writing wisdom!

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up whenever you felt like it.         J.D. Salinger

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.                    Ray Bradbury

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. Mark Twain

There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you. Zora Neale Hurston

Write without pay until someone offers pay. If nobody offers within three years, the candidate may look upon this as a sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for. Mark Twain

More Writing Wisdom!

All except the shallowest living involves tearing up one rough draft after another. Msgr. John Sullivan


I have likened writing a novel to going on a journey with some notion of the destination I will arrive at, but not the whole picture -- which emerges gradually as a series of revelations, as the journey goes along.     Rose Tremain

What a writer must enjoy, or at least tolerate, is the utterly solitary nature of the work. Lawrence Block

Writers should be read but neither seen nor heard. 
 Daphne DuMaurier

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.    Ernest Hemingway

Writing Wisdom

More quotes from my collection!

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.  Thomas Mann

The best thing that can happen in life is when you start work at eight o'clock and somebody says it's time for coffee break and you don't want to go.  Stephen King

The writer's magic word is BIC -- butt in chair.  Jane Yolen

A writer's job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as memories.  John Irving

Learn to love revision.  Wally Lamb

Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.  Mark Twain

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
 Muriel Rukeyser

7 Things I've Learned So Far

If only I'd known these things when I started my writing journey! (BTW, this article originally appeared on the Guide to Literary Agents Blog.)

      1.      If you’re not sick of what you’re writing then it’s not finished. You don’t want to hear it and I don’t want to believe it, but this is the sad, sad…oh-so-sad truth about writing. A good piece takes more revising than you think you can stand, but you have to do it anyway. Again and again. Of course, it’s helpful to set your work aside for a while to ferment, but then you’ll need to…

2.      Revise again. Sorry! There’s just no way around it.

3.      Procrastinate tomorrow. Write now. You may have heard the story (legend?) about the wealthy patron who visited Michelangelo and found him staring at a huge block of marble. Eventually Michelangelo would create the statue of David from the marble, but at the moment he appeared to be accomplishing nothing. The upset patron demanded, “What are you doing?” Michelangelo replied, “I’m working.” The art of writing takes mental preparation, too, but don’t tell yourself you’re Michelangelo when you’re just stalling around. Start chipping away!

4.      Don’t waste a word. Back story? We don’t need no stinkin’ back story! Jump right into the action and work in any important information as you go along. Keep description to a minimum – just enough to make the story come alive for your readers and no more! Use powerful verbs and ax the adverbs. And make sure every bit of dialogue reveals something important about character and/or advances the plot.

5.      Read your work aloud. Or at least do that whispery thing where you move your lips and pretend you’re reading out loud. That’s one of the best ways to find too-long sentences, awkward phrasing, grammar errors, repetitious word choices, and stilted dialogue. If you have to read something over and over to make it sound smooth then it probably needs work. (See #1 and #2 above.)

6.      “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.” That good advice comes from William Faulkner. Samuel Johnson said it another way: “Read over your composition and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.” Sometimes you have to look at what you’ve written with a cold eye and a heart of stone. Lovingly crafted scenes, lyrical prose, clever displays of wit, and real-life anecdotes should do more than show off your talent. Painful as it is, you must put the knife to anything that doesn’t also serve the story.

7.      We’re on a journey. And your main character should be, too. Of course, his external journey makes up your plot, but don’t forget the internal journey. If the main character doesn’t have one, then why should readers care about him? And if he doesn’t change in some way by the end of the story, then you don’t actually have a story! Clarify the main character’s personal journey before you even start writing then keep it in mind all through the process. Doing this will help you maintain the focus you need to write something amazing.