“I do not outline. There are writers I know and count as my friends who certainly do it the other way but for me part of the adventure is not knowing how it’s going to turn out.”
~ Joyce Maynard
poems
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ A Key to Starting a Novel
“Whenever I start a novel, I’m always looking for two things: a bit of science that makes me go ‘what if?’ and a piece of history that ends in a question mark.” ~ James Rollins
What are you looking for when you begin?
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Write About What You Know
“I try to write about things, places, events, and phenomena I know about personally. That helps make the novels more genuine.” ~ Lincoln Child
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ A Helpful Tip if You’re Stuck
“One thing that helps is to give myself permission to write badly. I tell myself that I’m going to do my five or 10 pages no matter what, and that I can always tear them up the following morning if I want. I’ll have lost nothing-writing and tearing up five pages would leave me no further behind than if I took the day off.”
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ What is a Good Short Story?
“A good short story asks a question that can’t be answered in simple terms. And even if we come up with some understanding, years later, while glancing out of a window, the story still has the potential to return, to alter right there in our mind and change everything.” ~ Walter Mosley
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Who Are You Trying to Please?
“The first person you should think of pleasing, in writing a book, is yourself. If you can amuse yourself for the length of time it takes to write a book, the publisher and the readers can and will come later.”
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ A Starting Place for Figuring out the Plot
“I begin by assembling notes on characters. Large swaths of the plot become clear to me as I do this.”
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Do You Hear the Music in Your Words?
“Because music is a language unto itself, when I’m writing, I need silence. I need to hear the music and the rhythms of the words inside my thoughts.” ~ Marianne Wiggins
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ A Reason for Writing
“I think we often write because we feel a loneliness, and people read for the same reason, and then they come away feeling a little less lonely.” ~ Amy Tan
✒️ Writers’ Wisdom ~ Get into Your Story
“Being a fiction writer is really like being an actor, because if you’re going to write convincingly it has to sound right and play right. The only way that works is to emotionally and technically act out and see the scene you’re in.” ~ Ridley Pearson
