Give yourself permission to be terrible. There’s nothing more paralyzing than trying to write a perfect novel in one draft. Do your best to turn off your inner editor and just write. Everything can be fixed later! ~ Sarah Rubin
fiction writing advice
Writer’s Wisdom ~ 10 Books Sucked, the 11th Didn’t
“I wrote a book. It sucked. I wrote nine more books. They sucked, too. Meanwhile, I read every single thing I could find on publishing and writing, went to conferences, joined professional organizations, hooked up with fellow writers in critique groups, and didn’t give up. Then I wrote one more book.” ~ Beth Revis
Writer’s Wisdom ~ Writing is Hard Work
Writing is hard work: “A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.” ~ William Zinsser
Writer’s Wisdom ~ John Steinbeck
In every bit of honest writing in the world… there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love. ~ John Steinbeck
Writing Wisdom ~ Carl Hiaasen
Every writer scrounges for inspiration in different places, and there’s no shame in raiding the headlines. It’s necessary, in fact, when attempting contemporary satire. Sharp-edged humor relies on topical reference points. ~ Carl Hiaasen
Source: NY Times
Writer Ursula K. Le Guin on Dialogue
All I can recommend is to read/speak your dialogue aloud. Not whispering, not muttering, OUT LOUD. (Virginia Woolf used to try out her dialogue in the bathtub, which greatly entertained the cook downstairs.) This will help show you what’s fakey, hokey, bookish — it just won’t read right out loud. Fix it till it does. Speaking it may help you to vary the speech mannerisms to suit the character. And probably will cause you to cut a lot. Good! Many contemporary novels are so dialogue-heavy they seem all quotation marks — disembodied voices yaddering on in a void. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin
Source: Open Culture
Author Ursula K. LeGuin Daily Routine
Source: Open Culture
Ray Bradbury’s Writing Wisdom #31
The writer who wants to tap the larger truth in himself … must forget the money waiting for him in mass circulation. He must ask himself, “What do I really think of the world, what do I love, fear, hate?” and begin to pour this on paper. ~ Ray Bradbury
I hope you enjoyed Ray Bradbury’s Writing Wisdom – All of his shared wisdom came from his book, “The Zen of Writing.”
Ray Bradbury’s Writing Wisdom #30
Work then, hard work, prepares the way for the first stages of relaxation, when one begins to approach what Orwell might call Not Think! As in learning to typewrite, a day comes when the single letters a-s-d-f and j-k-l-; give what to a flow of words. ~ Ray Bradbury
