Advice From Writers
Some of the best novels I’ve ever read never hit the best-seller list, then faded away before sadly going out of print. There are also some poorly written novels that do become best-sellers. Writing a great novel is the most important thing you can do to become a success, but sometimes it’s not enough these days.
- Nicholas Sparks
I was bright-eyes and bushy-brained and prepared to absorb the secret formula for writing good short stories, even great short stories. This illusion was canceled very quickly. The only way to write a good short story, we were told, is to write a good short story. Only after it is written can it be taken apart to see how it was done. It is a most difficult form, as we were told, and the proof lies in how very few great short stories there are in the world.
- John Steinbeck
Believe in yourself, keep writing
- Neil Gaiman
Writers groups can be good and they can be bad. Depends on the people in them, and what they're in them for.
- Neil Gaiman
The first draft of everything is shit.
-Ernest Hemingway
You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
― Jack London
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
― W. Somerset Maugham
Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die.
– Anne Enright
Write drunk, edit sober.
– Ernest Hemingway
Don’t take anyone’s writing advice too seriously.
– Lev Grossman
If you want to write, you can. Fear stops most people from writing, not lack of talent, whatever that is. Who am I? What right have I to speak? Who will listen to me if I do? You’re a human being, with a unique story to tell, and you have every right. If you speak with passion, many of us will listen. We need stories to live, all of us. We live by story. Yours enlarges the circle.
- RICHARD RHODES
- Nicholas Sparks
I was bright-eyes and bushy-brained and prepared to absorb the secret formula for writing good short stories, even great short stories. This illusion was canceled very quickly. The only way to write a good short story, we were told, is to write a good short story. Only after it is written can it be taken apart to see how it was done. It is a most difficult form, as we were told, and the proof lies in how very few great short stories there are in the world.
- John Steinbeck
Believe in yourself, keep writing
- Neil Gaiman
Writers groups can be good and they can be bad. Depends on the people in them, and what they're in them for.
- Neil Gaiman
The first draft of everything is shit.
-Ernest Hemingway
You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
― Jack London
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
― W. Somerset Maugham
Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die.
– Anne Enright
Write drunk, edit sober.
– Ernest Hemingway
Don’t take anyone’s writing advice too seriously.
– Lev Grossman
If you want to write, you can. Fear stops most people from writing, not lack of talent, whatever that is. Who am I? What right have I to speak? Who will listen to me if I do? You’re a human being, with a unique story to tell, and you have every right. If you speak with passion, many of us will listen. We need stories to live, all of us. We live by story. Yours enlarges the circle.
- RICHARD RHODES