Leandra Medine Quotes

Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.

I had written a book. For various reasons, the publishing industry had decided that my book was going to be 'important.' The novel had taken me 12-and-a-half years to write, and after being with the book for so long, I had no real perspective on the merits or demerits of what I had written. I hoped it was good, but feared that it wasn't.

One of the things you want as a successful writer is the anonymity.

A fortunate author can write maybe twelve novels in his lifetime.

If I hadn't been able to get my first book published, I am not sure what I would have done.

When 'The Shadow of the Wind' became a success I had already been a working writer, I'd been through the ups and downs, I'd seen how it worked.

To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author.

It took a brave editor in the U.S. to sign a contract for Dancing Girls, and without her belief in the book, I'm not sure it would ever have found its way into print.

My first book, 'The Age of Wire and String,' came out in 1995, and it was hardly reviewed at all.

For a lot of people, becoming an author is a change in occupation... they are coming from something that totally has nothing to do with this. If they are expecting to come into a room full of people praising them, then they are in the wrong place.

Every year, the Giller jury is different. You write the best book you can and throw it out there.

I sold my very first novel when I was 24 or 25 years old.

I believe if you write a great book, the chances are it'll get a great reception.

The idea is to become a best-selling author first and then the rest of my books will be slam dunks.

When people talk about being a writer, the first words that come to mind are glamour and artistic parties like Charles Dickens used to mix cocktails for.

I'm like a unicorn; I'm a midlist writer who hasn't done anything else but write. But because I wasn't amazingly famous, I didn't become Stephanie Meyer, or even a huge literary name like a Jonathan Franzen or a Joshua Ferris.

People generally don't recognize how long it takes to conceive, publish, and write a book.

I realized early on that being an author is a hugely misunderstood job. Because there are no pay grades and very little structure, people make interesting assumptions about the profession.

It's easy to get published once you have written a really good book and the hard part, 99 percent of what you need to worry about, is really finishing it.

I'm surviving and developing as a writer. I don't know what brings you to mass attention in terms of sales. But I've gotten more and more comfortable with it. Of course if that changes, I'll be comfortable with that. All I can do is write the best books I can.

I had a very realistic expectation of the level of success that it was possible to attain writing romance novels.

I got lucky, and the first book, 'The Black Echo,' got published.

I was twenty-seven when I began to write seriously, and after two years of rejections, my first book, 'The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo,' was accepted for publication.

I've been able to write at least one book a year for 20 years, and I don't think I would've had that kind of drive if I hadn't come out of the journalism business.

I'm not sure if you can strive your way into a career as a novelist. You have to write books; there are no short cuts.