Janet Reid is a literary agent and she has a blog. It seems that many publishers, traditional as well as publish-on-demand, are Read More...
No writer has ever yet been known to hang himself as long as he had another chapter left.
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.
No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has just put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or banana split.
If you haven’t got an idea, start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you’ll only have to throw away the first three pages.
What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.
Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.
Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk — away from any open flames — to remind yourself that if you don’t write daily, you will get rusty.
Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself.
The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I’m writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I’m going to play for the opening sequence.
When writing a novel, that’s pretty much entirely what life turns into: “House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1,500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.”
Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.
If you have an idea that you genuinely think is good, don’t let some idiot talk you out of it.

























