Jackie Collins Quotes

It's a bit cliche, but you can't go wrong by writing what you know. Even if you're a horrible writer, your own knowledge and experience is unrivaled. Nobody knows what you know like you know what you know. The way you see things is pretty unique.

If you're trying to write something that you don't understand and embrace at the very core of you, it's not going to turn out with quite the authenticity and passion it should have.

My advice would be to write what is most personal and specific to your experience or your life. And your voice will emerge and because of its specificity, it will be universal.

Write for yourself, not for a perceived audience. If you do, you'll mostly fall flat on your face, because it's impossible to judge what people want. And you have to read. That's how you learn what is good writing and what is bad. Then the main thing is application. It's hard work.

I don't know how I do it, but I've written about everything. I've written about my shoes.

A baby writer should take inspiration from her predecessors but also find ways to tell her own stories in her own way.

I prefer writing originals.

When aspiring writers ask me about how they should target their writing, I tell them to pay no attention to that kind of thing. It will restrict you. You will end up falling into stereotypes in an effort to tailor your work toward a perceived genre category.

One of the most challenging aspects of writing a memoir is finding your own voice, and you should be very careful about being influenced by someone else's voice.

When I teach writing, I have a mantra: 'Be a first-rate version of yourself, and not a second-rate version of another writer.'

I think anything that anyone writes that's any good is going to have a lot of autobiography.

I love to write. I used to be a math teacher. And I like the idea that other people could write about the same subjects, but no one would write it just the way I do. It's very individual: a child could write the same story as somebody else, but it wouldn't come out the same.

I think the best advice I give is to try not to write. Try not to overwrite, try not to make it sound too good. Just use your own voice. Use your own style of putting it down.

I write about what I know.

I don't know if there is any one secret to successful writing, but one important step is to move beyond imitation and discover what you can write that no one else can - that is, find out who you are and write that in an appropriate narrative and style.

Don't imitate. Write what you know about, that has to be your goal.

I like writing my own material - I'm pretty good at it.

I think I'm a good writer. I think I have my own voice, which is unique to everyone - everyone has their own voice; if they would just write from a vulnerable embarrassing place, it's going to be universal, and it's going to be entertaining. Because everyone is the same, and everyone is unique.

People love talking about writers as storytellers, but I hate being called that: it suggests I got it from my grandmother or something, when my writing really comes out of silence. If a storyteller came up to me, I'd run away.

I thought I was clever enough to write as well as these people and I didn't realize that there is something called originality and your own voice.

Every writer is going to end up drawing from their own experiences in one way or another.

I started writing more with my voice in mind.

There are millions of people who think that romance isn't real writing. But the only person who can make you real, make your books real, is you.

What provides you with subject matter is your own language - and that's all.

I like to tell my own story using my personality and my insight, the way I see things.