writing advice

If you’re not like them, however, if you’re not (sad to say) a rare genius, and you wish to, gradually, over time, raise the level of the (more or less limited) talent you do have, and make it into something powerful, I believe my theory might be of some value. You toughen up your will as much as you can. And at the same time you equip and maintain

⁠It taught me a lesson too. The difference between a “writer” and “somebody who writes” is the difference between showing up on a schedule and only showing up when you’re inspired. If you insist on always loving the craft, you’ll quit in the face of turmoil.

Treat people like they are smart, not like you’re smarter than them.

Share stories we can’t google.

For the most part, novelists are trying to convert something present in their consciousness into a story. Yet there is an inevitable gap between the preexisting original and the new shape it is spawning. That creates a dynamic the novelist can use as a kind of lever in the fashioning of his narrative. This is quite a roundabout way to do things,

I wake up early, brew fresh coffee in the kitchen, pour some in a big mug, sit down at my desk, and boot up my computer (there are times, I must

admit, when I miss the days of manuscript sheets and my fat Montblanc fountain pen). Then I sit there and muse about what to write that day. Such moments are pure bliss. To tell the truth, I have never