Good writing just isn't that common.
On the whole, I think you should write biographies of those you admire and respect, and novels about human beings who you think are sadly mistaken.
An author is like an incompetent bricklayer - doesn't use mortar and keeps rearranging the bricks until someone tells him to stop.
Comparisons deplete the actuality of the things compared... (Conveyance: The Story I would Not Want Bill Wilson To Read)
Allen Ginsberg instructs: First thought, best thought. Oh, to have my every spontaneous thought count as poetry! No draft after draft like a draft horse.Clayton Eshleman, laughing, said, 'First though...
Don't over edit. Don't second-guess yourself, or your ideas. Just write. Write every day, and keep at it. Don't get discouraged with the rejections. Tape them up on your office wall, to remind you of...
Be true to the writer within you; tell the story you're dying to tell in exactly the way you wish to tell it, and don't trust anyone who tries to sway you otherwise.
Every word I write is like a drop of my blood. If it's flowed passionately and long, I need time to recover from the emotion spent before I begin a new story. My characters are aspects of my life. I h...
Once they got into the idea of seeing directly for themselves they also saw there was no limit to the amount they could say. It was a confidence building assignment too, because what they wrote, even...
Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.
In quickness is truth. The more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth...
I believe that fiction with its untrammelled nature, speaks to no one, and by so doing, speaks to all.
I always tell my writing students that every good piece of writing begins with both a mystery and a love story. And that every single sentence must be a poem. And that economy is the key to all good w...
So they spread the paintings on the lawn, and the boy explained each of them. This is the school, and this is the playground, and these are my friends. He stared at the paintings for a long time and t...
Writer's block? I've never heard of a plumber complain about plumber's block.
If you are serious, and you want to make a living as an author, then you need to hustle. Period. If you can't make that quality, then you need to concentrate on your craft and practice more. One other...
When you start out writing, your inner creative is just a little seedling with tiny leaves above the earth, peeping out into the air for the first time.
The hard part is putting one word after another.
Nobody reads a book to get to the middle.
The trouble with writing fiction is that it has to make sense, whereas real life doesn't.