Holly Black Quotes

I'm pretty disciplined to keep the momentum of a story going by writing everyday, even if it's only a couple paragraphs or a page or two.

I've always been ambidextrous, writing short stories and novels, and I pretty much have been writing a novel and a handful of short stories every year since '91.

I write a thousand words a day.

I try and do 2,500 words a day, every day of the year.

Try to write at least 500 words a day. You may ditch 499 of them tomorrow, but you will still be moving forward.

If you try to write 1,000 words a day, as I do, after 100 days you'll look up and have a book. It may be a mess, and you may have to revise it 50 times, but you can't revise it if you haven't written it.

And I have this little litany of things they can do. And the first one, of course, is to write - every day, no excuses. It's so easy to make excuses. Even professional writers have days when they'd rather clean the toilet than do the writing.

You can write a short story in two hours. Two hours a day, you have a novel in a year.

Aim to write for an hour per day. I used to be a teacher, and an hour a day before school was all it took for me to write my first book. Don't get discouraged if a holiday or illness interrupts your writing habit. Just start it up again.

With the novels, I try to write a few pages a day - it doesn't sound much, but it can be difficult if I'm not sure where the story is going.

When I am occupied with a work that requires continuity - a novel, for example - I write every day.

I started writing seriously when I was 18, wrote my first novel when I was 22, and I've never stopped writing since.

I've been writing since I'm five years old. I've been writing books since high school - junior high, high school. I write every single day. I never thought I'd be published.

When I'm writing a novel or doing other serious writing work, I do it on a schedule that dictates writing either 2,000 words a day or writing until noon. After I hit whichever mark comes first, then I can give my attention to everything else I have to do.

If you want to be a writer, write a little bit every day. Pay attention to the world around you. Stories are hiding, waiting everywhere. You just have to open your eyes and your heart.

I'm always working on my next novel, even when I'm not.

A writer has to write something that they're - sit down with or are interested in every day of their life.

People imagine that there are rituals, like lighting candles or sacrificing chickens. They really just want to know what the magic formula is for writing. I inevitably disappoint them by saying you just put your butt in the chair, and you write 500 words a day, and then you get up and repeat it the next morning.

I write every day. I'm always in the process of writing my last book, until the next one.

When I'm working on a novel, I work 70-hour weeks.

Luckily I haven't fallen into the trap, which has claimed so many writers, of living from day to day thinking 'Ah, I'll write a book about that.'

Write something every single day, even if it's just three lines. And it doesn't matter if it's any good - just write something every day.

The point always is to be writing something - it leads to more writing.

I don't finish every story, but I probably write and send out three out of five of them.

I've been writing for a long time. I sat down to write my first novel in the middle of March of 1982.