"What I love about stories the most is the power they have to teach us of possibilities that might not occur to us without them."

"Craft consists of everything you've learned how to do and have internalized, but when you're actually doing it, the actions you take are both conscious and instinctive." 

"Every aspiring writer should read The Elements of Style."

"It's clear that advice of any type—whether it's for writing great novels, making a terrific spinach soufflé, or pitching a new widget to the sales team—is anything but one-size-fits-all."

"Sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving."

"Every great writer was once a beginner.  Remember that.  Don't beat yourself up for not knowing something.  Go out and learn it."

"The only thing that you absolutely have to know is the location of the library."

"We should always be changing and inspired by new things."

"Reading is fuel for the imagination.  Reading is inspiring.  Reading is relaxing.  Reading is a way to keep this 'art' part of your brain active between writing sessions."

"Untalented writers may feel cheated and lied-to if they can't get published, if they don't have good lives as writers.  Which is why you have to tell everybody at the outset that no creative writing program can guarantee a career, or publications, or anything except for some close readings and guidance."

"Everyone works differently.  I'm sure for new writers, it's frustrating to hear the answer to the 'How do you do it?' questions is that everyone works differently.  But I also take comfort from that.  You've got to find what works for you."

"I also go out in the afternoons to shoot photographs.  I find that the process of training the eye to compose in the viewfinder helps me hone my ability to revise poems.   I've always loved the connections and cross-pollination between art forms."

"The ingredients for making a successful work to me are imagination, idea, composition, skill and dedication."

"It's important to feed your mind with quality information daily. Only then is it possible to come up with great book ideas."

"There's no substitute for being a prodigal reader, for knowing the unlimited things that can be done with words on a page."

"We did lose some shops who only want to carry American-made goods, but we really don't view the world like that.  We feel more like citizens of the world, and we're wary of nationalist leanings.  It has made our brand stronger, improving the quality, but also providing a huge well of inspiration; the colors, textiles, and techniques we've learned in India have expanded our vocabulary greatly."

"I know, if you're a writer, you're constantly asked to take positions.  So don't do it without doing your homework."

"[Unlike books devoted to writing,] books written for painters do not imply that the chances are that the reader can never be anything but a conceited dauber, nor do textbooks on engineering start out by warning the student that because he has been able to make a grasshopper out of two rubber bands and a matchstick he is not to think that he is likely ever to be an honor to his chosen profession."

"I had an offer of a small advance and a traditional contract, which meant someone else paying for the publishing, providing editing, cover art, marketing, all of that. I was sure I'd never get another offer, and I loved the editor I was in contact with, so I took the deal. I learned a lot from that, but I also saw that all the tools for publishing were available to anyone, so I went on my own with the second book. I even went back and acquired the rights to my first novel. I've been self-publishing ever since. Even now, when I have publishers asking for the next thing I write, I choose to self-publish."

"Writers are a pretty insecure bunch, but I've never met one who blames their sales on their bad writing."

"Most experienced performers will say that they don't get nervous.  I don't get nervous anymore because everything that can be go wrong in my shows has already happened.  I've knocked my table over.  I've had an audience volunteer start crying.  I've had props break.  I've injured myself.  Literally anything that can go wrong has gone wrong, and now I know what to do when it does."

"All writing is great training for writing.  Of course one learns specific things writing in a specific genre, and some of those skills carry over from one form to another."

"There is no way [writing] students are going to get better without reading.  You must know who your literary parents are and who your grandparents are."

"Sometimes some songs take years to get right. You do it and you just know it's not right and you can't get it right so you leave it. I think you can only do your best with it and sometimes your best isn't good enough. At which point you have to give it a rest. Because then you start doing really strange things to it. And when it starts going that far astray it's time to go away from it."

"The more you read, the more nuggets you file away, the more gold in your stores, the richer your writing will be."

"It's the darker things I find really beautiful.  I guess I haven't learned to paint the lighter parts of life in a way that's pleasing to me, although I think it can be done—Rousseau does it, and so does Richard Diebenkorn." (artist)

"Life would be perfect if I had hours each day to read for fun.  In truth, most of the books I read are within my own genre.  I need to stay up-to-date on the books being published in children's fiction in order to be able to come up with books my publisher will buy.  That's my first priority.  When I read for fun, usually it's in audiobook format, and I'm almost exclusively listening to books written by those who are much more accomplished than I am." 

"The practice of writing is a kind of self-instruction that no number of writing workshops can teach you.  You have to learn how to do it yourself.  The writing makes you a writer, it builds your discipline, enhances your talent, and draws froth the reserves of your character."

"Want to come up with great book ideas? Looking to improve your writing skills? Hoping to turn your writing into a profitable business? Then be a reader!"

"I can spend weeks without mentioning to anyone that I'm a writer.  I'm a minority these days, but I'm not certain it's a good thing for writers to spend a lot of time with other writers.  Solidarity and community are essential—I am not arguing against either—but when the majority of your friends are writers ... that seems to work for a lot of people, but that shit's just not for me."

"More than ever I see still and moving images becoming one and the same.  Having experience and vision in both mediums will be crucial for most people over the coming years."

[The student writer] only vaguely knows that successful writers have overcome the difficulties which seem almost insuperable to him; he believes that accepted authors have some magic, or at the very lowest, some trade secret, which, if he is alert and attentive, he may surprise.  He suspects, further, that the teacher who offers his services knows that magic, and may drop a word about it which will prove an ['Open, Says Me'] to him.  In the hope of hearing it, or surprising it, he will sit doggedly through a series of instructions in story types and plot forming and technical problems which have no relation to his own dilemma.  He will buy or borrow every book with 'fiction' in the title; he will read any symposium by authors in which they tell their methods of work.  In almost every case, he will be disappointed.

"The biggest [advantage in self-publishing] for me is the freedom to write what I want when I want. I can jump genres and write several novels a year. Traditional publishing is much too restrictive. I don't want to pump out the same book over and over. I want to challenge myself and produce the work that I feel is missing from the marketplace."

"Some of my favorite directors of the 1970s became rich and famous and lost touch with other human beings not like themselves.  [With social media,] I can now maintain a connection to other people, not just in the U.S. but all over the world.  It allows me insight into someone who's 15 in Thailand."

"If you're an artist and you're satisfied, then you're done being an artist.  There's more out there than you could ever imagine."

"The greatest minds of our time and in human history have spent years, and sometimes decades, to condense the best of what they know into a few pages that can be read in a few hours and purchased for a few dollars … but you're not a big reader. That's a bad decision."

"The act of writing a book-length manuscript is its own education, regardless of whether the manuscript is ultimately published."

"In college, I was into sculpture, I enjoyed sculpting the human body and understanding proportions.  You need to have a serious understanding of anatomy to be a fashion designer." (artist)

"I started out writing novels—I wrote two bad ones before I ever touched a short story. ... Those failed novels taught me an immense amount about focus and about paying attention to my audience—essential skills for writing the short story.  Had I not written those bad novels I doubt I would have ever had any luck with short stories."

"A novel like The Grapes of Wrath may fill a new writer with feelings of despair and good old-fashioned jealousy—'I'll never be able to write anything that good, not if I live to be a thousand'—but such feelings can also serve as a spur, goading the writer to work harder and aim higher."

"I now have a better understanding of how to communicate my ideas, but I still struggle every single day.  As soon as I stop struggling, I'll be dead."

"I know the next decade will bring some wild changes—both personally and industry-wide—as the vehicles with which we consume content keep changing.  That directly informs what I do for a living, and my hope is not just to keep up, but to really engage with new channels, mediums, and people."

"The true failure of a writer is to quit, to give in.  A genuine writer accepts failure, understands how essential it is to the process, and simply continues to write, each time hoping the next story will be better than the one that came before it."

"Stick with it.  Do your thing.  I dropped out at 16, I never went to art school, and I taught myself everything I know."

"Success is about pushing yourself to a new level with what you create."

"One day, I had a great idea for a mystery.  I knew it was a good idea; I got goosebumps and became obsessed.  I announced to my husband, 'I'm going to write a mystery.'  He was sweetly skeptical, but supportive, and I was naively compelled to write it.  I had no idea what I was doing, but I thought—I've read a million mysteries!  I'll learn.  I was 55 years old, and that book turned out to be Prime Time, which won the Agatha for Best First Novel."

"Think of reading as an investment that you make in yourself. The more you do it, the more you'll grow as a person."

"Just seeing excellent films doesn't educate you at all, because they're mysterious.  A great film is mysterious.  There's no way of solving it.  Why does Citizen Kane work?  Well, it just does.  It's brilliant on very level, and there's no way of putting your finger on any on thing that's right.  It's just all right.  But a bad film is immediately evident, and it can teach you more: 'I'll never do that, and I'll never do that, and I'll never do that.'"

Worlds of Wonder

"Although practice makes perfect, perfection must also be practiced. Either way, practice is the key."

"The only way, I think, to learn to write short stories is to write them, and then to try to discover what you have done."

"Short stories will teach you to write. It's that easy. Short fiction requires a heightened focus on sharp storytelling and crafty writing. A novel lets you get lazy. Short stories demand you to write in tip-top shape. You'll learn to say more with less."

"You can escape your teachers. ... Your teachers taught writing methods suited to themselves, not to you."

"When you follow Must every day, you impact not only what you create for your work, but also who you become in your life. This is how your work and your life become one and the same. When you choose Must, what you create is yourself. It is a body of work. As you change, so too does the work. As you grow, so too does the creation."

"When you play with new tools and methods, you will literally activate parts of your mind that have become hard to reach over time."

Ray Bradbury - "Telling the Truth"

"If you're at the stage where you only have one or two books out please take this to heart: It will get better, and it will become easier. All you have to do is keep writing, and keep learning."

"If you like fantasy and you want to be the next Tolkien, don't read big Tolkienesque fantasies—Tolkien didn't read big Tolkienesque fantasies, he read books on Finnish philology.  Go and read outside of your comfort zone, go and learn stuff."

"Writing is something you spend your life learning how to do and you never quite get there, you never finish learning about writing, that's why it's such a great job."

"What will elevate your work and make it your own is to live your life. Learn from your existence and borrow things from your day to day. Have adventures. Take risks. Put yourself into your fiction. Because life offers a kind of writing advice you just can't read about—it's something only you can experience."

"Writing advice is valuable. ...You don't have to listen to any or all of it, but you damn sure should be considering it. If you're not thinking and learning about this craft of yours, then quit now."

"A chef doesn't just learn five dishes—a great chef learns new techniques and is always looking for a way to refine his form and sharpen the process. Writers must do the same."

"That critical fan base comes as you write more ebooks, continually learn and offer something new with each book.  Deeper emotion, more twists, a new high concept or more raw gut appeal."

"Curiosity creates a sort of brain vortex that sucks in whatever you feel most motivated to learn, along with ideas that may be floating around your environment.  The spark of curiosity lights up the hippocampus (where the creation of memories occurs), and the reward and pleasure brain circuits, which release dopamine.  So if you want an alert brain, start your day by immersing yourself in something you find fascinating and mysterious.  Pique your curiosity, enjoy the natural high and learn something new."

"I enjoy the challenge. Writing in a new genre is like dating someone new. It's exciting. It's fun. It's uncomfortable. It forces you to try new things, tests your limits, teaches you how to overcome obstacles, and is an opportunity for growth."