"I always read when I'm writing - Stephen King calls it "refilling the word well" - and I often re-read my favorite authors and my favorite books. Finding a chapter or scene I love and really analysing how the author put their sentences and descriptions and paragraphs...
"Have faith in your own story and your own process. When I first started writing I heard talks from authors who’d written practically since they could hold a pencil, and I heard about authors who plotted out entire stories before they wrote a single manuscript word....
"My advice is to keep hope in the mail ie. always have more than one submission out with editors or agents at a time. If you receive a rejection, this means you'll still have another submission to pin your hopes on, and it will cushion your disappointment about the...
"I believe that to make it as a writer takes a combination of skill, persistence, and luck. William Feather aptly puts it, "Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go." There is no way to predict what will be the right pitch at the...
"Don't fall prey to believing everything you read in Craft books or hear in workshops is the only way to do things. Always remember that what people tell you works, is what works for them - and what works for them might not work for you. You may be different, and...
"Form a network with other writers. This can be in person at local writer's meetings, or online on forums and websites, or some combination of the two. More heads are better than one when it comes to knowing about new opportunities for authors or hearing about changes...
"Go Low Tech I don't know how anyone ever managed to write and revise a novel before the invention of computers (laptops!) with word processing. The speed and maneuverability, the way you can lift whole passages out and slot them in somewhere better--it's fantastic....
"My simple tip for writers is this: write. Write every day. Don’t let your internal critic talk you out of it because you still need to learn this or that skill, or you haven’t got that perfect synopsis yet or the ‘just right’ computer to get started. Tell that fussy...
"One thing I often hear is this...I've always wanted to write a book. I often respond with: Have you started it? Nine times out of ten? The answer is no. There's no trick to writing a book other than this. Write it. There are no magic beans, no secret ingredient, no...
