Marcia Clark Quotes

There were about ten years of trying, failing, trying again, suffering rejection, etc. My first published book, 'Story of a Girl', was the fourth book I wrote.

I struggled for a long time to get anything published.

For over a year I continued to submit mss, and have them rejected - the last few with rejection letters indicated the story was pretty good, but I was American.

I started by writing short stories, but they weren't very good; I tried them on various magazines, and none of them was published. People were nicer then about turning you down, and so I didn't lose heart - I kept on writing and wrote a lot of books, one or two of which I finished, and others I didn't.

Of the first seven novels I wrote, numbers four and five were published. Numbers one, two, three, six, and seven, have never seen the light of day... and rightly so.

I spent four of my five years at Stanford writing a novel I was unable to sell.

You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.

The one ironclad rule is that I have to try. I have to walk into my writing room and pick up my pen every weekday morning.

Write every day, just to keep in the habit, and remember that whatever you have written is neither as good nor as bad as you think it is. Just keep going, and tell yourself that you will fix it later.

You fail only if you stop writing.

I didn't expect any success at all. I was rejected by every publisher in the world and every agent in town.

After 20 years, a million written words, and nine rejected novels, I finally landed a book contract.

The first book I sat down to write was an historical romance. It was really bad and thankfully no one ever saw it.

I had left the music industry at the end of 2001, after 10 years, and had spent three years writing every single day - producing two unpublished novels, one abandoned novel, and three unproduced screenplays. The word 'no' and I were on more than nodding terms. The word 'no' and I were talking about going on holiday together.

The usual way - through a long series of rejections, revising my manuscripts, and kept trying again and again. Finally I was fortunate enough to find a good agent.

Each time, I think I'm never going to write another book. It never gets easier.

I am usually protective of my work, not showing it to anyone until it has been redrafted and polished.

I could write an entertaining novel about rejection slips, but I fear it would be overly long.

It's still incredibly hard. Not just honing my craft but kicking down doors, getting my work published. Early on, I could have wallpapered my house with all the rejection letters sent my way. I put thousands of hours and pages into four novels that never saw the light of day.

I've had a lot of books rejected in my time. My first novel, which didn't get published, was, with hindsight, crashingly dull.

I wrote one terrible manuscript after another for a decade and I guess they gradually got a little less terrible. But there were many, many unpublished short stories, abandoned screenplays and novels... a Library of Congress worth of awful literature.

Were there stories I wrote along the way that were terrible clinkers? God, yes. But they were all a product of their time, and I did the best I could.

I continued writing the bad plays which fortunately nobody would produce, just as no one did me the unkindness of publishing my early novels.

First drafts are never any good - at least, mine aren't.

I know there are writers who like to say that every novel is hard, and it doesn't get easier. That may be the case, and I've only written two. But the first, to me, was characterized by an enduring oscillation between perseverance and a profound doubt.