Keeping readers is a crapshoot

Best Advertisement for Your Writing Is Your Writing

"The best advertisement for your writing is your writing. Write a book that people want to read. Then another. Then another. Keep at it until the world can't ignore you anymore."

Conflict is all

"Conflict is all. Watching combat—dialogue back and forth—transfixes an audience like a tennis match. They won't have time to get bored."

What is success in the 21st century

What is success in the 21st century? It's novels that invent their own unique form, spring from a personal place, enact a passionate intent, and prove it by reaching a broad readership. It's both great reviews and great sales. It's moving hearts and changing minds. It's winning accolades and winning the devotion of readers. It's finding a way through your fiction to convey what you alone see, yet we all come to accept as the truth.

keep listening to your readers

craft is always secondary

"The so-called Stanislavsky Method rests on two principles: that the actor's body is an instrument that must be supple, strong, and prepared; and that craft is always secondary to the truth of emotional connection."