247 You will know that you’re done with something when you can’t imagine making it better. For some writers that’s a state of exhilaration: They’ve done everything they can. This beautiful accomplishment! Nothing can improve it. Others of us arrive at the same place, despondent: This ramshackle thing. I’ve reached the end of my powers. Nothing can

It’s difficult not to dream when you send work into the world, but try not to dream quantitatively. We’re not in it for the numbers.

Everything you have done in your life before you start writing, good habits and bad behavior, is preparation for fiction writing. Those years will save you time.

If you revise trying to answer every objection anyone has to your work, you will write something unobjectionable. Nothing is worse than unobjectionable fiction.