Release the Bats: Writing Your Way Out Of It
The writer, however, must loosen the bonds that have held her back all these years. Sexual lust, hate for her own children, the desire to taste the blood of her enemy—all these things and many more must, at times, crowd the writer’s mind.
Walter Mosley • This Year You Write Your Novel
One thought I’ve often had about success is this: none of it is solid or is guaranteed to last. A supposedly great book can be forgotten or become dated. Laurels fade pretty quickly. But the one thing that seems pretty resilient is the pleasure one takes while writing – the alteration of the mind that takes place as we work a thing up the ladder, m... See more
George Saunders • Office Hours
That’s the million-dollar question: What makes a reader keep reading? Are there laws of fiction, as there are laws of physics? Do some things just work better than others? What forges the bond between reader and writer and what breaks it? Well, how would we know? One way would be to track our mind as it moves from line to line.
George Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
The fear of judgment is crippling to many authors, and prevents them from either writing their book, or from writing the book that they really want to write, or telling the stories they want to tell in their book. Here’s the simple fact about books: if no one at all disagrees with what you are saying, then you aren’t saying anything worth putting i
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