Yeah, episodic doesn’t work. Your coolest character needs something big and meaningful to do. Otherwise, well, it’s just narrative shit.

A migraine is the cockblock of writing.

But people in a small town tend to do a lot of talking, even when they don’t know what they’re talking about.

There is no right or wrong way to write a novel. Each journey is different for every individual work and for every writer. The first error is never to begin; the second is never to...

If you treat your characters like people, they’ll reward you by being fully developed individuals.

I write fiction. It may have mystery, it may have horror, it may have fantasy, it may have love, but like life, it’s all the same genre.

When you print out your manuscript and read it, marking up with a pen, it sometimes feels like a criminal returning to the scene of a crime.

Writing a story, regardless of length, begins always with a single word.

Authors must spend months, years making fantasy believable in a single work while reality runs rampant and complete chaos elsewhere.

Regarding the creative: never assume you’re the master, only the student. Your audience will determine if you’re masterful.

If you focus on the humanity of your stories, your characters, then the horror will be stronger, scarier. Without the humanity, the horror becomes nothing more than a tawdry parlor trick. All flash and no...

Write for impact first, money second. If you do it the other way around, you’ll end up with less of either.

Writing a first-draft battle scene is akin to real combat—chaos, confusion, and you must keep your cool as you fire word bullets downrange.

When you’re writing what you love, it’s the most fun you can have with your clothing still on, unless of course, you write naked.

Writers often torture themselves trying to get the words right. Sometimes you must lower your expectations and just finish it.

Any conversation including the mention of Roald Dahl, Ray Bradbury, or Emily Dickinson is one worth getting into or at least eavesdropping.

Even if you’re in the thick of revising another work, write something new. Something small. It’s important to keep telling yourself stories.

You can be a writer who doesn’t read everyday. But you’re not fooling anyone. It shows, rather embarrassingly, in your work.

Nothing’s a better cure for writer’s block than to eat ice cream right out of the carton.

Mothman flew away from town, like a giant bat, and then disappeared from sight behind a thicket of skeletal autumn trees.

Love it when a compelling new character kicks open your mental door, tracks mud across your brain, and props their feet up on your cerebrum.

Nothing says work efficiency like panic mode.

The recipe for great art has always been misery and a good bowel movement.

Successful writing is a slow, daily, meticulous form of mental illness.

Always work with/surround yourself with people who help make you a better version of you. Kindly avoid those who don’t.

Fear and self-doubt are the deadly enemies of creativity. Don’t invite either into your mind.

A writer always writes.

A day of bad writing is always better than a day of no writing.

Write about the thing that scares you most or your most private confession and you’ll never have a problem coming up with decent fiction.

I don’t use big words to show off because it’s ostentatious.

Always mystify, torture, mislead, and surprise the audience as much as possible.

If you schlep a shit job everyday, keep and feed a little secret life–whether it’s writing, art, running, music, your thoughts. It’s yours.

Kindness, motherfucker, kindness.

I’ve found the best way to revise your own work is to pretend that somebody else wrote it and then to rip the living shit out of it.

It’s my belief that people enter your life at exactly the right time.