Q: Do you have any advice for upcoming writers who want to pen weird stories?A: READ, damn it. Fill your brain to the bursting point with the good stuff, starting with writers that you truly...

Problem, purpose, conflict, goal. Use them. Think about them while you are in the planning phase of your novel; keep these elements at the back of your mind to guide you while you write. When...

I’ve tried to explain to people that I don’t ‘love’ writing any more than I ‘love’ breathing. It’s something I do and it’s something I need. If I thought about it as a love/hate thing,...

You know, my dear, it’s only doing you harm to write vers libre. After you have been writing strict, rhyming verse for about 10 years it will be time to venture on the free sort....

Art is a journey of excellence not a goal of perfection.

To forget oneself-to lose oneself in the music, in the moment- that kind of absorption seems to be at the heart of every creative endeavor.

Write as though your life depended on it.

Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow is beyond our reach. The best time to write is now, in the present.

She thought a writer should work harder writing a book than she did reading it.

Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost...

…some writers closet themselves – I write wherever I am because that’s where life is happening …

Start the next one today.

It’s okay to write crap. Just don’t try publishing it while it’s still crap.

One idea to a sentence is still the best advice that anyone has ever given on writing.

Rejection is the run in the pantyhose of life.

Fiction must convince our bodies for it to have any chance of convincing our minds.

If you can master the opening, you will be leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.

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

The beauty of Goodreads is that you know you’re sowing in a field where everyone, by definition and self-selection, loves to read.

Not everyone is fodder for books,’ said Rosalind.

You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.

You must learn to be three people at once: writer, character, and reader.

My ideas are a shapeless mass that my writing molds into beauty.

talent” is as common as mud; what’s rare is the motivation to sit down and actually do something with one’s talent, the discipline to do it regularly, and the persistence to stick with it until...

There is a muse, but he’s not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy-dust all over your typewriter or computer station. He lives in the ground. He’s a basement...

Writing is like a lump of coal. Put it under enough pressure and polish it enough and you might just end up with a diamond. Otherwise, you can burn it to keep warm.

To prepare to write, I don’t surround myself with books. I surround myself with feelings.

Don’t fool yourself. Talking about writing is not the same as actually doing it.

One does not travel, any more than one falls in love, to collect material. It is simply part of one’s life…

I am doubtful myself about the undertaking. Part of the attraction of the L.R. is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background: an attraction like that of viewing far...

All great writers share one thing in common:They finished their books.

Each thing you add to your story is a drop of paint falling into clear water; it spreads through and colors everything.

Perhaps the hardest thing in all literature— at least I have found it so: by no voluntary effort can I accomplish it: I have to take it as it comes— is to write anything original....

The best kind of praise is intelligent praise.

Every book I’ve read appears in my writing.

On the whole, I think you should write biographies of those you admire and respect, and novels about human beings who you think are sadly mistaken.

Let at least one word of my writings impregnate the reader’s heart.

Don’t get it right, get it written.

Biographies are best when written chronologically. Boring people don’t make for good biographies.

Write what should not be forgotten.

I’ve never heard a writer feel that way about a device with a screen. Oh sure, they’re functional, practical. We would be lost without them. But just as we need to feel our feet on...

No writing is wasted. Did you know that sourdough from San Francisco is leavened partly by a bacteria called lactobacillus sanfrancisensis? It is native to the soil there, and does not do well elsewhere. But...

There is no ceremony, no initiation ritual, no secret hand-shake. All you need to be a writer is to write.

The best writing is when one writes from the soul

I’m writing. The pages are starting to stack up. My morale is improving the more I feel like a writer.

…it’s good to know wave and particle alpha code, but more than that, the writer must go to the heart of life …

The difference between wanting to write and having written is one year of hard, relentless labour. It’s a bridge you have to build all by yourself, all alone, all through the night, while the world...

Not that length and weight alone indicate excellence; many epic tales are pretty much epic crap.

You can’t just come out and say what you have to say. That’s what people do on airplanes, when a man plops down next to you in the aisle seat of your flight to New...

When it comes to writing, clarity trumps all rules.