“The single most important technique for making progress is to write ten words. Doesn't matter if you're badly stuck, or your day is completely jam-packed, or you're away from your computer - carry a small paper notebook and write a sentence of description while you're waiting on line at a coffee shop. I think of this as baiting a hook. Even if you have a few days in a row where nothing comes except those ten words, I find that as long as you have to think about the novel enough to write ten words, the chances are that more will come.” IfsThinkingWritingLongImportantMatterEnoughWaitingLinesChanceNovelProgressTenPaperComputerSentencesTechniqueCoffeeStuckShopsDescriptionHookJamChances AreNotebookCoffee Shop Author:Naomi Novik
“I write on a computer, but I've run the complete gambit. When I was very young, I wrote with a ballpoint pen in school notebooks. Then I got pretentious and started writing with a dip pen on parchment (I wrote at least a novel-length poem that way). Moved on to a fountain pen. Then a typewriter, then an electric self-correct. Then someone gave me a word processor and I was amazed at being able to fit ten pages on one of those floppy discs.” WayWritingSelfRunningAbleSchoolYoungNovelFitTenComputerPagesMovedLengthPensElectricAmazedFountainNotebookTypewritersPretentiousDipMoved OnDiscsProcessorsGambitFountain PensBallpoint Pens Author:Charles de Lint
“If I tried to write long-hand, I suppose I'd never finish a novel. I edit too much as I write - the paper would be "white-out" and sharpie marks. Writing with a computer works for me, so I stick with it.” IfsWritingLongHandsWould BeWhiteNovelToo MuchPaperComputerMarkSticksEdits Author:Nicholas Sparks
“Writing, and especially writing a novel, where you get to sit in a room by yourself with either a pen and a paper or a computer for a couple of years, is a very solitary occupation. You can read sales figures - a hundred thousand books sold, half a million books sold - but they are just numbers.” WritingYearsBookRoomsNumbersHalfMillionsNovelFiguresCoupleThousandPaperComputerHundredPensOccupationSolitary Author:Neil Gaiman
“In our interconnected world, novel technology could empower just one fanatic, or some weirdo with a mindset of those who now design computer viruses, to trigger some kind of disaster. Indeed, catastrophe could arise simply from technical misadventure - error rather than terror.” WorldKindTechnologyNovelDesignComputerErrorsTerrorMindsetDisasterAriseJust OneEmpoweringCatastropheTriggersFanaticsVirusesInterconnectedWeirdoMisadventureComputer VirusesInterconnected World Author:Martin Rees
“We live in a cluttered culture, a culture of information in which even our computers can't tell us what's worth knowing and what is merely cultural scrap. In such a society, we don't have the experience of contemplative space, of the time or mood to engage a book of poetry or even read a novel. Who can achieve the unconscious-conscious state of the reader when everything is stimulation, everything is movement and information?” BookStatesCultureSpaceNovelKnowingAchieveInformationMovementReaderComputerConsciousMoodUnconsciousScrapContemplativeStimulation Author:T.C. Boyle
“I still find it absurdly difficult to concentrate on a novel if there's a phone or computer to hand; I have taken to locking them outside the room like noisy pets.” IfsStillsHandsDifficultRoomsNovelTakenComputerPhonesPetNoisy Author:David Nicholls
“My big dream back then was to buy an IBM Selectric. I still have that dream. I really ought to buy a word-processor. Half the cabbies at Rocky own computers. They tell me they can write failed novels ten times faster on a PC.” WritingStillsDreamBigsHalfNovelOughtTenComputerFasterIbmProcessors Author:Gary Reilly
“If I'm writing a novel, I'll probably get up in the morning, do email, perhaps blog, deal with emergencies, and then be off novel-writing around 1.00pm and stop around 6.00pm. And I'll be writing in longhand, a safe distance from my computer. If I'm not writing a novel, there is no schedule, and scripts and introductions and whatnot can find themselves being written at any time and on anything.” IfsWritingDealsMorningNovelWrittenSafeComputerDistanceScriptsGet UpSchedulesEmailEmergenciesIntroductionBlogsNovel Writing Author:Neil Gaiman
“Novels are almost like music or poetry - they just come to me in simple sentences, whereas I think my pieces get more and more complex ever since I've started using a computer.” ThinkingSimpleNovelPiecesComputerComplexesSentences Author:Joan Didion
“If you look at the whole world now it's just computer games, graphic novels, film, TV spinoffs, spinoffs of spinoffs like Deadpool spinning off of Wolverine. So I think that any kind of smart producer looks at all of those bases. Once it comes down to the integrity of it audiences are very smart, they smell that they're just kind of being played.” IfsThinkingWorldLooksKindWholeFilmGamesNovelAudienceTvsIntegrityComputerSmartBasesSmellWhole WorldProducersSpinningGraphicVery SmartGraphic NovelsBeing PlayedComputer Games Author:Sam Worthington
“Creating the characters is the most creative part of the novel except for the language itself. There I am, sitting in front of my computer in right-brain mode, typing the things that come to mind - which become the seeds of plot. It's scary, though, because I always wonder: Is it going to be there this time?” MindCharacterLanguageBrainWonderNovelCreativeFrontsComputerCreatingSittingScarySeedsPlotTyping Author:Elizabeth George
“Computer and video games represent one of the most important new media developments of this generation. Unlike many other forms of entertainment they offer players the opportunity to explore, be creative, learn through interaction and express themselves to others. It is vitally important that we protect and nurture this new art form so that it can reach its full potential. Like most new forms of artistic expression that have come before (music, novels, movies), the primary critics of video games are the people that do not play them.” PeopleArtImportantPlayFormOpportunityGamesNovelCreativePlayerGenerationsMediaExpressionDevelopmentOffersProtectComputerCriticsEntertainmentVideoArtisticPrimariesInteractionNurtureBe CreativeNurturingThis GenerationFull PotentialArtistic ExpressionNew Media Author:Will Wright
“When I was writing my first novel, I smoked cigarettes. And when I think about what it was like to smoke, I remember exactly the feeling of sitting in front of my big old computer in that little room where I wrote my first novel.” ThinkingWritingFirstsLittlesFeelingsBigsRememberRoomsNovelFrontsComputerSittingSmokeCigarette Author:Dani Shapiro