Ricky Jay Quotes

My self-editing process is intense.

I read what I write over and over and make corrections and improvements, until I reach the conclusion that the material deserves to stand on its own.

When I write, I tend to read it out loud to myself after. I'm a very uncomfortable reader, so it creates a distance between the text and me - it is a new way to see it.

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.

I always market research my books before I hand them in by showing them to five or six close friends who I trust to be honest with me, so they are very heavily re-written already.

I don't find writing easy. That is because I do take great care: I rewrite a lot. If anything is sort of clumsy and not possible to read aloud to oneself, which I think one should do... it doesn't work.

Sometimes I can spend as long revising a manuscript as I spent writing it in the first place.

I always rewrite each day up to the point where I stopped. When it is all finished, naturally you go over it. You get another chance to correct and rewrite when someone else types it, and you see it clean in type. The last chance is in the proofs. You're grateful for these different chances.

And the most important thing you can do is learn to edit yourself. And then go back and rewrite.

I draft quickly and then revise, a lot.

I'm constantly revising. Once the book is written and typed, I go through the entire draft again.

Once you've finished typing and moving text around and everything else, you have to leave it alone for a while. You do that to see if it stands up, to see if all the loose edges have been trimmed, if it makes sense, if it's consistent, what shape it really has. You can't tell that while you're working on it.

Asking myself, 'Is this any good?' is pointless. It just slows down my writing, and I can't tell anyway. It's always the paragraphs I loved most, the ones I tenderly polished and re-read with pride, that my editor will suggest cutting.

Although no one loves a typo, it's close to impossible to eradicate every single little mistake in a manuscript.

Of every four words I write, I strike out three.

The urge to purge the material I come up with is, I guess, an ongoing process.

Reading your own material aloud forces you to listen.

I don't like re-writing very much. The fourth and the fifth draft - that's too much like work. There's not much inspiration about it, and the lawyerly side kicks in - being very careful and somewhat technical.

I don't write a quick draft and then revise; instead, I work slowly page by page, revising and polishing.

If every editor turns you down, maybe you should take a second look at your text, however, just in case.

I write when the urge hits me, getting the words down as fast as I can type and then I step back from what I just wrote and start a dialectical process where I begin challenging my own writing.

Like all editors, I assume, I'm a reactor.

I probably spend 90% of my time revising what I've written.

Five people read my work before its ready for publication, and I solicit opinions from all of them: my wife, my agent, my editor, and my parents.

When I'm my own editor, there's very little difference between the first draft and the final. I write what feels right to begin with. I rarely make any major changes.