Laurell K. Hamilton Quotes

There are writers whose first drafts are so lean, so skimpy, that they must go back and add words, sentences, paragraphs to make their fiction intelligible or interesting. I don't know any of these writers.

When I write a book, I write very cleanly from page one to the last page. I hardly ever write out of sequence.

I want to wake up one morning and know how to write page one, or page 10, or page 250. But I never seem to know how to do it. Every book is different and takes a different structure, style, process, etc. And relearning how to write is where the insanity comes from.

Each book has been different and has been challenging in its own way to write.

Normally, I spend a week on the outline and take two weeks to write the book.

Outlining is not writing. Coming up with ideas is not writing. Researching is not writing. Creating characters is not writing. Only writing is writing.

It depends on the book and what else is going on during my life, but it usually takes me about six months to write and revise the first draft.

You have to learn how to write each book.

I do the same kind of rewriting that I do in the shorts that I do in long books - and that is a lot. The book really comes to life in the rewriting.

Every book is like starting over again. I've written books every way possible - from using tight outlines to writing from the seat of my pants. Both ways work.

I write short stories. I write every day.

I have friends who are capable of writing a very rough draft and then going back and embroidering - they're sort of the cathedral builders of fiction. I never really know what I'm doing, and all my pleasure's on the level of the line.

I must write the book out in my head now, before I sit down.

Some stories or passages are more difficult and demand more fussing with than others, but, in general, I'm a two-draft writer rather than a six-draft writer, or whatever.

When I'm writing the first draft, I'm writing in a very slovenly way: anything to get the outline of the story on paper.

Usually I'll write all the way through to an end, and then I go back and try to fix the ending so that it makes sense. I don't think out the plot ahead of time.

For me, the hardest thing in the world is how to start a book.

While writing a novel, I don't read anything new in fiction. I am too engrossed.

To tell you the truth, I don't edit much at all. Most times, when I have finished the first draft, that's the book. Of course, I work on the page I am on until I am happy with it. I might even say that I try to state the landscape.

Here's the secret to finishing that first book. Don't rewrite as you go.

I really don't know what I am going to do in terms of what a book is going to be about until I actually start writing it!

If you're having trouble finishing a book, it might be that you're trying to fix it as you go. Just finish the story, no matter how terrible you think that first draft is. Then let it cool off. In other words, don't look at it for a while. Then you can rewrite it.

I learned to write fiction the way I learned to read fiction - by skipping the parts that bored me.

I write and write and write, and then I edit it down to the parts that I think are amusing, or that help the storyline, or I'll write a notebook full of ideas of anecdotes or story points, and then I'll try and arrange them in a way that they would tell a semi-cohesive story.

I love the structural part of the writing process.