Ruth Rendell Quotes

I don't find writing easy. That is because I do take great care; I rewrite a lot.

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

Be prepared to fall out of love with your words. I'm still too verbose at times.

Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.

If you get a sense that your writing isn't quite working, change it. Or cut it out. Don't just tell yourself it'll do, because it won't.

There's no reason you shouldn't, as a writer, not be aware of the necessity to revise yourself constantly.

When a writer becomes a reader of his or her own work, a lot can go wrong. It's like do-it-yourself dentistry.

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.

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.

Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

I'm glad I wrote them when I did because I think if I were to write my first novel now, it would be a different book, and it may not be the book that everybody wants to read. But if I were given a red pen now, and I went back... I'd take that thing apart.

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.

Rewriting is a large part of the whole job. And get rid of stuff that's not working. Just pare it down until it's a beautiful thing you can hand in, probably late, to your editor.

I was never a quick writer, but composed with great care and efforts.

I edit as I write. I revise endlessly. I don't go forward until I know that what I've written is as good as I can make it.

I have a high guilt quotient. A poem can go through as many as 50 or 60 drafts. It can take from a day to two years-or longer.

I used to think it was hard to write, and I still find the process more or less unpleasant, but if I know what I'm doing it rattles along, then the rewrite whips it into shape rather quickly.

It's always the paragraphs I loved most, the ones I tenderly polished and re-read with pride, that my editor will suggest cutting.

I can always make things longer than I intend for them to be, but cutting things down is just brutal. It's like cutting off your fingers every time you lose a word.

I should mention something that nobody ever thinks about, but proofreading takes a lot of time. After you write something, there are these proofs that keep coming, and there's this panicky feeling that 'This is me and I must make it better.'

Occasionally if I look back at something I've written I'll find one of those that I don't understand, but that's a bad thing - the unconscious has dealt me a bad hand.

Re-writing is different from writing. Original writing is very difficult.

Writing is probably one-fifth coming up with the stuff, and four-fifths self-editing again and again and again.

I write 1,000-1,500 words. The next day, I rewrite it and add 1,000-1,500 words to the end of it.