“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
“This novel has it all--mystery, psychological insight, emotional truth, and--most important--characters whose lives matter. You'll fall in love with these families. Solti writes with such passion it is inescapable, lyrical, and profoundly moving. The Forgetting Tree goes on my top ten list.” WritingImportantMatterCharacterMovingFallPassionForgetNovelMysteryTreeEmotionalGoes OnTenFalling In LoveInsightListsPsychologicalLyrical Author:Jonis Agee
“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
“The Sugar Frosted Nutsack is fantastic. It's volcanic and sexy and utterly unlike anything I've read before. It feels like the future in a dazzling way that has nothing to do with looking backward. It's been a long wait for a new novel from Mark Leyner, but worth it. Ten out of ten from me.” WayFeelsLongWaitingNovelTenMarkSexyFantasticSugarLooking BackWorth ItDazzlingLong Wait Author:Douglas Coupland
“Personally, I do not believe that it is the duty of any man or woman to write a novel. In nine cases out of ten, there would be greater merit in leaving it unwritten.” MenWritingBelieveWould BeCasesNovelGreaterDutyTenLeavingNineMeritUnwritten Book:Varia Source: Varia
“When I'm really involved or getting towards the end of a novel, I can write for up to ten hours a day. At those times, it's as though I'm writing a letter to someone I'm desperately in love with.” WritingI CanEndsHoursNovelInvolvedTenLetters Book:Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates Source: Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates
“I am persuaded that not a novel in ten thousand is of any use to a child to fit him for life. The most are of use only to unfit him -- to blunt his senses and infect him with the writers' poor silly sentiments. Nine out of ten novelists deserve to be prosecuted under an Adulterated Emotions Act.” ChildrenUsePoorEmotionNovelFitThousandTenDeserveSillySensesNineNovelistsSentimentsBlunt Author:Storm Jameson
“A discursive student is almost certain to fall into bad company. Ten minutes with a French novel or a German rationalist have sent a reader away with a fever for life.” CertainFallReadingCompanyNovelMinutesStudentsReaderTenFeverBad Company Book:Pleasures of Literature Source: Pleasures of Literature
“I taught elementary school and painted apartments for ten years. Now I write full-time and never have to change a thing I write. Every book comes to me in a flash of inspiration and takes me about two seconds to finish. The longer books, like the Time Warp Trio novels, take a little longer to write - more like four seconds.” WritingYearsLittlesTwoBookInspirationSchoolNovelFourTaughtTenTake MeSecondsFlashApartmentElementary SchoolWarpTrios Author:Jon Scieszka
“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
“When I am writing a novel, though, then it's usually three or four hours a day. Ideally, right after lunch until three or four, but sometimes picking up again around ten, going until a touch after midnight. I rarely write in the morning, unless I'm on deadline. I do like rewriting in the morning, though. Guess it's the way my brain's put together. Or, the way it's falling apart.” WayWritingSometimesTogetherFallThreeHoursBrainMorningNovelFourTenLunchMidnightFalling ApartDeadlineRewriting Author:Stephen Graham Jones
“The book is almost always better than the movie. You could have no better case in point than FROM HELL, Alan Moore's best graphic novel to date, brilliantly illustrated by Eddie Campbell. It's hard to describe just how much better the book is. It's like, "If the movie was an episode of Battlestar Galactica with a guest appearance by the Smurfs and everyone spoke Dutch, the graphic novel is Citizen Kane with added sex scenes and music by your favourite ten bands and everyone in the world you ever hated dies at the end." That's how much better it is.” IfsWorldBookEndsHardDiesSexCasesNovelHellCitizensSceneBandTenAppearanceAssHatedSpokesGuestsFavouriteEpisodesBad AssGraphicDutchGraphic NovelsCitizen KaneSmurfBattlestar Galactica Author:Warren Ellis
“It [going from mini-series to series] was never even discussed because it [The Starter Wife] was, you know, an adaptation of a novel. And we - the mini-series encompassed the whole novel. And so it was always going to be a finite sort of event. And then I imagine when people started to really respond to the show and then we got ten Emmy nominations, USA sort of said, "Oh, I think maybe we have something here."” PeopleThinkingKnowsSaidWholeShowsNovelImagineEventsTenSeriesUsaFiniteAdaptationNominationsEmmys Author:Debra Messing
“In a novel, the hero can lay ten girls and marry a virgin for the finish. In a movie, that is not allowed. The villain can lay anybody he wants, have as much fun and as he wants cheating, stealing, getting rich, and whipping servants. But you have to shoot him in the end.” WantEndsGirlFunNovelRichHeroTenLaysStealingServantCheatingVillainVirginsGet RichWhipping Author:Herman J. Mankiewicz
“A novel can educate to some extent, but first a novel has to entertain. That's the contract with the reader: you give me ten hours and I'll give you a reason to turn every page. I have a commitment to accessibility. I believe in plot. I want an English professor to understand the symbolism while at the same time I want the people I grew up with - who may not often read anything but the Sears catalog - to read my books.” PeopleWantGivingFirstsBelieveMayBookReasonTurnsI BelieveHoursNovelGrewReaderTenGrew UpPagesCommitmentGive MeI Believe InPlotContractsProfessorsEducateSymbolismAccessibilitySears Author:Barbara Kingsolver
“Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (whose mother died ten days after she was born) wrote a novel that anticipates Semmelweis's discovery and serves as a parable for the destructive power of decaying matter.” MatterMotherBornNovelTenDiscoveryDiedDestructiveMaryAnticipateParablesMother DiedShelleyDestructive Power Author:Laura Mullen