There is something eternal in the very nature of writing, as is so graphically illustrated by the scriptures themselves. In a very real sense, our properly written histories are a very important part of our family scripture and become a great source of spiritual strength to us and to our posterity
Writing was not a childhood dream of mine. I do not recall longing to write as a student. I wasn't sure how to start.
My name became a brand and I'd love to say it was the plan from the start. But the only plan was to keep writing books. And I've stuck to that ever since.
I cannot write as well as some people; my talent is in coming up with good stories about lawyers.That is what I am good at.
So many book sections in newspapers and magazines used to be lively and vibrant places. Now they are gone. You just don't see many reviews anymore. I can't control that, so I don't worry about it. I just try to do what I do and write books that people find every entertaining. I don't worry about the critics.
I remember Stephen King did a fundraiser one time with J.K. Rowling and he was very impressed with her. But we talk a lot about publishing, bookselling, and book writing. He's been around for ten years longer than me and was a bestseller right off the bat. And he's seen and done everything. It's rare to be with somebody who has been through all of that.
The good thing about writing fiction is that you can get back at people.
One thing that drives me nuts... well, let me ask you, when writers write do they not use quotation marks anymore?
In retrospect Hank I don't know why I spent four years writing this book when I could have just made a hit sing-a-ma-jig album.
I believe in hope, in what is something called ”radical hope.” I believe there is hope for all of us, even amid the suffering. And that’s why I write fiction, probaby. It’s my attempt to keep that fragile strand of radical hope, to buld a fire in the darkness.r
I'm not interested in writing for adults. I like them as people! I don't like the way they publish books in that world. Nothing ever gets a chance.
The right story needs the right telling.
Go spit in the face of our inevitable obsolescence and finish your @#$&ng novel.
Here's my answer to the very real existential crisis that grips me midway through everything I've ever tried to do: I think stories help us fight the nihilistic urges that constantly threaten to consume us.
That's how writing works, at least for me: even the stuff that doesn't work out gets funneled into the stuff that does work out.
The funny thing about writing is that whether you're doing well or doing it poorly, it looks the exact same. That's actually one of the main ways that writing is different from ballet dancing.
I never liked writing concluding paragraphs to papers - where you repeat what you've already said with phrases like 'In summation', and 'To conclude'.
I like to know the places I write about. I feel like it helps me ground the novel. My novels are 'realistic novels,' but they can also be fantastical, so it's nice to have a setting that grounds them a little bit.
I don't decide where I live. My wife decides. She's a curator of contemporary art, and she works at an art museum, so we go wherever she has a job. All basements look the same, so I can write from whatever basement I happen to be living in.
Different authors write different ways, have different relationships with their audiences, and those are all legitimate.
I know that books seem like the ultimate thing that's made by one person, but that's not true. Every reading of a book is a collaboration between the reader and the writer who are making the story up together.
Read a lot. Read broadly... Tell stories to your friends, and pay attention to when they get bored... Write a lot.
I enjoy writing about people falling in love, probably because I think the first time you fall in love is the first time that you have to figure out how you're going to orient your life. What are you going to value? What's going to be most important to you? And I think that's really interesting to write about.
In the end, what makes a book valuable is not the paper it's printed on, but the thousands of hours of work by dozens of people who are dedicated to creating the best possible reading experience for you.
One of the pitfalls about writing about illness is that it is very easy to imagine people with cancer as either these wise-beyond-their-years creatures or these sad-eyed tragic people. And the truth is, people living with cancer are very much like people who are not living with cancer. They're every bit as funny and complex and diverse as anyone else.
