Akhil Sharma Quotes

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.

I don't write drafts. I write from the beginning to the end, and when it's finished, it's done.

I like to edit my sentences as I write them. I rearrange a sentence many times before moving on to the next one. For me, that editing process feels like a form of play, like a puzzle that needs solving, and it's one of the most satisfying parts of writing.

I'm not patient at all. I avoid writer's block by writing. I power through with a bad version, so I can move on, and usually once I've gotten to the next scene, I'll discover what was missing from the bad version scene. Then I can easily rewrite it to get back on the right path.

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.

I don't do much rewriting, because each paragraph is very carefully put together.

I write everything out in longhand in one fast go. And then I throw out the first few and start over again. By the end of the first draft, the whole thing's messy and disgusting and horrible, but you really understand the foundational stuff.

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.

I have the foundation to write, and then I go back and do research, and some of that might influence the recrafting of certain scenes.

Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something-anything-down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft-you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft-you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it's loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy.

I'm not a writer who refuses to talk about a book until I've finished.

I love rewriting because that is where and how you discover the story. It's like you have this skeleton, and you get to put flesh on it and hair and clothes and really wonderful jewelry.

Basically I started to jot notes, lots of faxes back and forth to my writer, we faxed ideas throughout the whole first draft, and started all over again.

My writing process often begins with a question. I write down ideas and let them stew for about a year. Then, when I sit down to write, I make a list of characters and try to see how they fit.

After finishing a draft, no matter how rough, I almost always put it aside for a while. It doesn't matter if it's a story or a novel, I find that when it's still fresh in my mind I'm either thoroughly sick of its flaws or completely blind to them. Either way, I'm unable to make substantive edits of any value.

The research is the easiest. The outline is the most fun. The first draft is the hardest, because every word of the outline has to be fleshed out. The rewrite is very satisfying.

Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven.

You should take notes whenever you hear interesting or original language.

Only in very rare circumstances will you see something cut out of my first drafts. Maybe it's because of the way I write. I'm very focused on the logical progression of the story, and every character has a role to play.

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.

As a very experienced writer once told me, 'It's in the rewrites'.

I'm a fairly fast, but sloppy writer, so I'm a big fan of re-writing, and re-writing again.

I read stories aloud at every stage. I listen to my writer friends when they kindly offer criticism. I listen to my husband when he tells me something doesn't seem right. I have my mother's boyfriend, Loring Janes, read to make sure I get everything right with the machines and guns.

In the writing process, the more a story cooks, the better.

Longhand isn't well suited to my way of writing. I tend to end up with dozens of pages of crossings-out and margin scribbles just to find one good paragraph, and it's easy to lose your train of thought, working like that.