280 Quotes About On-writing

Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.

What is hell to a writer? Hell is being too busy to find the time to write or being unable to find the inspiration. Hell is suddenly finding the words but being away from your notebook or typewriter. Hell is when the verses slip away through your fingers and they never return again.

In the book, he said, the self is fixed, made concrete; the book is the intersection of the soul and time.

It’s frustrating having these narrative expectations. All our lives we want answers—when will this happen, what is that, who are they, do you smell something burning, you name it. And everyone avoids the questions! Never do we actually get the response we’re hoping for. The answers in our head are far superior to whatever they, to whatever I, could come up with. So they leave it to you to figure out. ‘And where’s the fun in that?’ you say. And someone else replies, ‘You tell me.

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.

It's not what you lift, it's where you carry it.

...but every person who does serious time with a keyboard is attempting to translate his version of the world into words so that he might be understood.

Tell a story in fewer and simpler words.

Clichés are the viruses that infect your writing with diseases.