From school desks with inkwells and scratchy nibs on paper to sweaty finger prints on a tablet... technology progression yes... style?
The best ending ever, for a science fiction book - or any novel, now that I think about it - was in Rendezvous With Rama. You know that you're at the end of the book and yet, there is no resolution. Then he hits you with those last six words. Better ...
What makes a writer successful is not money or fame (though both are nice) ... it's that in being true to her or himself, the words were able to connect to a reader's heart.
Writing is like having sex. The people who never shut up about doing it are usually the ones who don't know what the hell they're doing.
There has to be something other than keeping busy that gives human life value, because our society so often functions as if ‘productivity’ and/or ‘usefulness’ are the measures of human value, and — particularly for artists — this is deepl...
But if the Busyness = Status equation works, it’s strictly because a social game has emerged wherein relatively privileged, educated people with all kinds of Choice disguise their decisions to be busy as manifestations of the universe’s insatiabl...
Word count doesn't tell me when a story ends, my characters will tell me.
Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, or making friends. It's about doing what you love the best you know how. It's about making a heart pound in fear, shrink from rage, weep with understanding, or soar with excitement. It's about making ...
When strangers on a train or a plane ask what I do for a living, I say, "I kill people." This response makes for a short conversation. No eye contact and no sudden movement from my seat-mate. Only peace and quiet. Rare is the fellow passenger who ask...
I don't think you can reach your potential as a writer unless you're a passionate reader, AND read passionately.
Do what you love, especially if your sharing the word
Writing is my life. Life is my hobby.
When I'm writing, I make words my b*tch. But when I'm editing, the words make me their b*tch. It all equals out in the end.
Some days being a writer consists of telling yourself you aren't insane, your characters are.
Writing is like a blind man building a stone house with a limited amount of space and time. Brick after brick, row after row, feeling his way round and round. Turning stones into walls, rooms and towers. Relentlessly searching for doorways and window...
Words writers choose are a glimmering reflection into our souls.
I see Sarah framed in the light of her doorway and it is like looking at a painting that emanate a mixture of wishes and truths about someone I loved - from a time I can already vividly remember. I wonder if this is a hazard of being a writer: a sens...
That night I looked Stephanie [Burt] up online and started reading more about her work...I kept encountering a striking factoid...: she’s often cited as the most influential poetry critic of her generation. And she’s openly trans. This is not the...
The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium.
Do not worry about what words to use. Worry about why this story needs to be told and the rest will take care of itself.
Trawling through a dusty attic of my addled memory I found that I’d been rather in a lot of daft and amusing situations, so I set about writing them down. The only problem being that I was a lot better at telling stories than writing them, probably...
