“A screenwriter heard me read from my novel 'The Wishbones' when it was still in progress and mentioned me to some producers in Hollywood. They called, and I told them I had a novel in my drawer about a high school election that goes haywire. They asked to take a look, and my life changed pretty dramatically as a result.” LooksStillsSchoolResultsNovelProgressHeardChangedHigh SchoolHollywoodElectionProducersLife ChangingScreenwritersDrawersWishbones Author:Tom Perrotta
“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
“Imitation both unconscious and conscious is par excellence the educational method of the family. It is plain that a considerable part of the adaptation of living beings to their environment, i.e., of beings that are born plastic, is passed on from generation to generation through imitation. Were this not so, much if not all of the road traversed by one generation would have to be travelled by the next generation from the very beginning and without short-cuts. Consequently there would be little chance for the novel adaptation, the propitious individual variation, that constitutes progress.” IfsLittlesWould BeNextIndividualBornChanceNovelEnvironmentCuttingProgressGenerationsConsciousMethodExcellenceEducationalUnconsciousPlasticImitationAdaptationNext GenerationVariationShort Cuts Author:Elsie Clews Parsons
“I don't keep anything on paper (except within an actual novel in progress, at which point I need a file to keep track of plot threads, characters, and so on).” NeedsCharacterNovelProgressPaperTrackPlotThreadFiles Author:Charles Stross
“Our rate of progress is such that an individual human being, of ordinary length of life, will be called on to face novel situations which find no parallel in his past. The fixed person, for the fixed duties, who, in older societies was such a godsend, in the future will be a public danger.” HumansPersonsPastFacesIndividualHuman BeingsSituationNovelProgressDangerDutyOrdinaryRateFixedLengthParallelsLength Of Life Book:Science and the Modern World Source: Science and the Modern World