Sergio Aragones Quotes

Manuscript: something submitted in haste and returned at leisure.

I was now ordered to have my writings copied, and put into the printer's hand.

After my husband spell-checks one of my manuscripts, my editor says, 'It's been Normanized.'

Tor.com has been a venue for original SF and fantasy since 2008, but we've never formalized our process for submissions. Indeed, for a long time, we were totally winging it.

The trick was really finding the appropriate publisher for each of the projects I'd devised.

Over a four-month period, I sat down and wrote every day. And then there was a novel, and all of a sudden, there were agents and offers.

I'm really happy to have the chance to talk about the editing process. It's something that I think doesn't get the weight it deserves, especially with the rise of self-publishing.

It generally takes me about nine months from the point the book is conceived to the point my editor sends it off to be typeset.

I don't think there's a difference between writing for a newspaper or magazine and doing a chapter in a book.

Writers have to put up with this editor thing; it is ageless and eternal and wrong.

I'd done occasional short stories, but I don't like publishing them in literary magazines; they treat you too much like college boys.

I come out of journalism, and then book writing. There, it's just you and your editor and maybe a copy desk, looking over your editor's shoulder, and that's the story. It's right there. I can show it to you because it's on paper.

The draft that finally goes to my editor doesn't get into her hands until I have read it out loud innumerable times - sometimes into a tape recorder - to make sure that it sounds right.

Another time factor is output: proofing and printing. That is, getting your work out of the computer and onto paper and having it satisfy you. It can be time consuming and expensive.

I have a problem with blogs - all the best writers benefit from edits.

There are many challenges I face while working on a book. Working within deadlines and schedules is certainly one of the bigger ones for me. I want to create the best possible book I can for my readers with words and pictures - and that takes time to get it just right.

Even after the text is written, there are a tremendous number of stages along the way to the finished book. If a publisher cares about the finished product, none of them will be omitted.

I had already drafted the manuscript that would become my first book by the time I graduated from college, but I had no idea what to do with it.

I was fascinated with the writing process and seeing the evolution of a sketch and how it would change up to the minute before it went on the air.

The real challenge in doing a TV show is in what I would call the maintenance energy. You take that creative energy and you use it every week, of course. But you then need to maintain the quality of the stories, and it's harder to do.

Most of my books have caused distribution and printing problems in the past.

People might be surprised to know how much I throw away. For every page I publish, I throw 10 pages away.

I became a connoisseur of that nasty thud a manuscript makes when it comes through the letter box.

I feel sorry for people who have to edit me. Which is why book writing is by far the most enjoyable. Really the only thing it's based on is whether it's good or not. No book editor, in my experience, is getting a manuscript and try to rewrite it.

Write when drunk. Edit when sober. Marketing is the hangover.