-Jane Yolen
Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.
All the words I use in my stories can be found in the dictionary—it’s just a matter of arranging them into the right sentences.
-Somerset Maugham
Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.
-Orson Scott Card
All the information you need can be given in dialogue.
-Elmore Leonard
No internet. No emails. No camera or pictures. No color screen. You can write. That’s all. Nothing else. It runs on two AAA batteries (rechargeable) for about 15 – 20 hours. You can change the size of the font and invert the colors. Really, that’s about it. Oh, and there is a calendar, but I never use it. It can’t do half of the things that PDA’s could a decade ago, but it was an incredibly worthwhile investment for this writer. I had thought about buying a Macbook Air, but I already have an iMac and really have no need for another computer. Nor did I want all the distractions that would come with writing a first draft on a laptop. I wanted pared down action. And the DM20 is my focus machine.
If science fiction is the mythology of modern technology, then its myth is tragic.
-Ursula K. Le Guin
Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In general…there’s no point in writing hopeless novels. We all know we’re going to die; what’s important is the kind of men and women we are in the face of this.
-Anne Lamott
Fiction is about stuff that’s screwed up.
-Nancy Kress
