“I tend to be pretty efficient with my time. I work on a novel for four to five hours a day, and then the rest of my day is spent doing other things, whether it's spending time with my family, or going through and making notes on the script, or working on the marketing. It's just a matter of scheduling.” MatterHoursNovelFiveFourMy FamilyNotesMarketingScriptsSpendingMy TimeEfficientSpending TimeScheduling Author:Nicholas Sparks
“And if I'm guilty of having gratuitous sex, then I'm also guilty of having gratuitous violence, and gratuitous feasting, and gratuitous description of clothes, and gratuitous heraldry, because very little of this is necessary to advance the plot. But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes.” IfsWritingLittlesPhilosophyCareReadingSexFictionNovelViolenceClothesNotesGuiltyDescriptionPlotAdvancementCliffsAdvancingFeastingReading Fiction Author:George R. R. Martin
“I think being an editor really helped me take other people's notes on my writing. I'd get a note like 'It's too wet' or 'The first couple chapters are good, but then the rest of the pages were so wet that they were completely illegible' or 'Did you dip this in Sprite? This smells like Sprite. Why would you dip your novel in Sprite?' And instead of pushing back, I'd listen. That's an incredibly important skill for a young writer to have.” PeopleThinkingWritingFirstsImportantYoungNovelCoupleSkillsPagesNotesSmellPushingEditorsWetChaptersDipYoung WritersPushing Back Author:Toni Morrison
“An important factor to note is that it's rare for anyone to sell a first novel written before they turned 30-35; long-format fiction tends to require a bunch of experience of human life that takes time to acquire. So your average mid-career novelist is in their forties to fifties!” FirstsHumansLongImportantFictionCareersNovelWrittenSellsNotesAverageBunchFactorsHuman LifeNovelistsAcquireFortyTake TimeFormat Author:Charles Stross
“The older books were quite light-hearted. But I think most of my novels do end on a deep note of pessimism. Shadows seem to be closing in. The final conclusion isn't that life is wonderful and everything is bright and cheery and in the garden.” ThinkingBookEndsLightSeemsLife IsNovelWonderfulShadowGardenNotesFinalsConclusionPessimismClosingHeartedLight HeartedLife Is Wonderful Author:Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
“Radio, or at least the kind of radio we're proposing to do, can cut through that. It can reach people who would otherwise never hear your work, and of course I find that very notion inspiring. Radio stories are powerful because the human voice is powerful. It has been and will continue to be the most basic element of storytelling. As a novelist (and I should note that working my novel is the first thing I do in the morning and the very last thing I do before I sleep), shifting into this new medium is entirely logical. It's still narrative, only with different tools.” PeopleShouldFirstsHumansKindHas BeensStillsDifferentStoriesLastsCoursesVoiceSleepPowerfulMorningNovelCuttingElementsToolsNotesNotionRadioStorytellingMediumsNarrativeNovelistsLogicalShiftingHuman Voice Author:Daniel Alarcon