A writing day is like any other day. Except I live in my pajamas, I forget to eat, and I suddenly look up, wondering when day turned into night.

When reading a book, one hopes it doesn’t turn into a painful process. Predictable is bad enough. Laborious is acceptable if the labor produces fruit. But with painfully bad writing, all one can do is...

I read the novel I had been writing for several months with an odd sense that it was the work of a stranger. I usually work in the dead hours of night and surprising the...

I remember when I first began writing, I would spend maybe five or six hours on perhaps two paragraphs, and at the end of the day, not only were the paragraphs pretty terrible but I...

I write because, as wonderful as life is – and it is truly wonderful – it isn’t enough. It does not, for example, contain dragons. I find this unsatisfactory. So I read. And I write.

Being blind is the worst possible thing and asking me to read and write no more is torture.

If everyone could be a successful and rich author, there would be no point in working so hard. Where is the fun in that?

…you are a writer the moment you start writing, not when you’ve sold your first book.

Authors always feel in danger of being abandoned by loved ones. This is a potent fear. Yet it’s as inevitable as writer’s cramp when we presume to write words for others to read.

What Writing Is: Telepathy, of course.

Writers are a superior breed. No one else can face so much rejection and still thrive.

When sitting in an armchair isn’t enough… I write. What I mean is that when it no longer suffices to sit and dream about travelling to other times, other places, I write about them instead....

I feel my fear moving away in rings through time for a million years.

Most people assume I write at night because of the kind of books I write, but I can shut out the light with my mind.

Every day I must prove to myself I am a writer. The knowledge goes away in my sleep. What I wrote yesterday was paltry, meager, so flawed it is barely anything. Or, if it is...

Books are like horcruxes–without all the evil–because a piece of the author goes into each one.

Nonfiction. I didn’t choose it as much as it chose me. It squatted and birthed me one raw winter day then jerked me up and set me to scribing.

In the story of life, the prologue and epilogue are written by God. Yet the plot has been given to us; therefore we should write the best prose we can.

Writing Tip:Don’t let the “writing rules” bog you down when you’re writing the first draft; they don’t matter when you’re writing the story, only when you’re editing the story.

There are authors who write to communicate, there are authors who write to impress themselves.

The awful part of the writing game is that you can never be sure the stuff is any good.

I do enjoy writing, and I hope someone gets something interesting out of this book. I already have. Now, If I ever have to write a book that is not about me, I may be...

If You Can Stand It, Play the Long Game . . .What I mean here is that you have to remain committed to the ultimate goal, which isn’t to win the immediate approval of the...

I love my career. It is a career. A difficult one that takes many hours and total dedication to my craft. It is also what I was born to do–tell stories and entertain.

I never waited for my Irish Cream coffee to be the right temperature, with a storm happening outside and my fireplace crackling … I wrote every day, at home, in the office, whether I felt...

Research” is a wonderful word for writers. It serves as excuse for EVERYTHING

Let your characters lead when you’re dancing together.

Sometimes we dream of things that we’ve always wanted–of things that we have been searching for our whole lives without knowing it…and other times we wake up and know what we have to do. I...

If the voice inside your head doesn’t sound anything like you, you might be a writer.

The night before a deadline, I usually am in desperate need of a back rub. And new wrists. And candy. And little mice to secretly finish the job while I am sleeping.

That’s why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. You can’t control life, at least you can control your version.

I like what I do. Some writers have said in print that they hated writing and it was just a chore and a burden. I certainly don’t feel that way about it. Sometimes it’s difficult....

I before E except after C. Weird?By rebelling against the rules the word itself denotes its very meaning: of strange or extraordinary character, odd, fantastic.I think all writers are weird.

I’d written Smashed not because I was ambitious and not because writing down my feelings was cathartic (it felt more like playing one’s own neurosurgeon sans anesthesia). No. I’d made a habit–and eventually a profession–of...

Visual and performing artists produce art that lives in the present world. The art of the writer exists in another dimension. Through strings of words and phrases writers inspire their readers to imagine, to conjure...

Read and write all the time. Never stop sending out your stuff. If you’re constantly writing and sending stuff out, eventually someone will bite.

A writer is a dangerous friend. Everything you say, all of your life and experience, is fodder for our writing. We mean you no harm, but what you know and what you’ve done is unavoidably...

To write freely is to walk a joyous, terrifying, exhilarating path naked through the world of the fully clothed.

To speak, to write , without charm is to make utterances without reference to a reality outside oneself. It is an act devoid of the playfulness of art, without the attractive humility of one who...

Make your skin as thick as you are able to, for your career. Keep it as thin as you can tolerate, for your art.

In eleven or twelve years of writing, Mike, I can lay claim to at least this: I have never written beneath myself. I have never written anything that I didn’t want my name attached to....

Writing is like trying to escape quicksand. The harder you try the faster you sink.

In her spare time she scribbled her thoughts, wishes and dreams, life and times. It kept her sane despite her loneliness.

Most of the people I worked with in my old job were pretty cool. We used to go out drinking after lights out and the less pleasant members of staff would be the topic of...

Writing is life, not just a ‘job’. It’s lying to communicate the truth, it’s speaking while being quiet, it’s winning and losing at the same time.

You are more ready and able to grasp at opportunity when your hands are empty.

I speak, I speak, and truth at that. Writers are a curious breed: brooding, fickle, alternately loving and hating their work—and each other. You’re my friend? Don’t pick up that pen!

I’m a husband, a father of two, a full-time teacher, and so my writing process mostly involves sitting down and writing, any chance I get, anywhere I am, for as long as life will let...

What doesn’t kill us gives us something new to write about.

Be an unstoppable force. Write with an imaginary machete strapped to your thigh. This is not wishy-washy, polite, drinking-tea-with-your-pinkie-sticking-out stuff. It’s who you want to be, your most powerful self. Write your books. Finish them,...