Again, I’ll argue that this round of insights is applicable to much more than serious writing.
- “I would write a book, or a short story, at least three times ― once to understand it, the second time to improve the prose, and a third to compel it to say what it still must say. Somewhere I put it this way: first drafts are for learning what one’s fiction wants him to say. Revision works with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to reform it. Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.” ― Bernard Malamud
- “My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.” ― Anton Chekhov
- “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” ― Somerset Maugham
- “Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” ― Henry David Thoreau
- “No author dislikes to be edited as much as he dislikes not to be published.” ― Russell Lynes
- “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” ― Ray Bradbury
- “Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.” ― Jane Yolen
- “Find your best time of the day for writing and write. Don’t let anything else interfere. Afterwards it won’t matter to you that the kitchen is a mess.” ― Esther Freud
- “I go out to my little office, where I’ve got a manuscript, and the last page I was happy with is on top. I read that, and it’s like getting on a taxiway. I’m able to go through and revise it and put myself ― click ― back into that world.” ― Stephen King
- “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” ― Mark Twain
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