Cecily von Ziegesar Quotes

I worked on 'Always and Forever, Lara Jean' for a few months before I breathed a word of it my editor or agent.

I thought I would write non-fiction. I thought I would enter the New York literary scene as copy editor, work my way up, and then write my own books.

My foray into young adult lit was by no means planned. I wrote the first 'Alfred Kropp' book as an adult novel, which everyone loved but no one would publish - until I changed my protagonist from a thirty-something P.I. into a 15-year-old kid. After that, it was off to the races, and I am so glad.

I was incredibly determined - I wrote short stories, I wrote the beginnings of novels. I wrote a little children's book and sent it to the editor-in-chief of the children's division of Simon and Schuster and she asked me to write a little children's book for a series she was doing.

I had to write something and couldn't think of a plot, so I decided to write a Cinderella story because it already had a plot! Then, when I thought about Cinderella's character, I realized that she was too much of a goody-two-shoes for me, and I would hate her before I finished ten pages.

I was a book editor for nine years. I'm familiar with the opposite experience, bracing myself for the likelihood that no one would want to publish my book.

First, I would find an object which I would think is suitable for my characters and stories, then write about it, and in the end, I ended up with a house full of thousands of objects.

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

Becoming a YA author was actually a very lucky accident. When I wrote the 'Queen of Everything,' I thought it was a book for adults.

Writing a teen character is something I wanted to try again for a long time!

'I Am Legend' is quite unusual for its time. I just wanted to write a story about female boxers, and I couldn't get that going in my mind. I don't know exactly where the idea of just a man pitting himself against a robot boxer came from.

I haven't made up my mind about doing anymore Landover books.

I know authors shouldn't play favorites with books, but 'Release Me' really is right up there for me. The characters truly came alive on the page and drove the story as much as I did from behind the scenes. It was a pleasure to write, and I'm so thrilled that it's the first of a trilogy because I get to spend more time with the characters.

I worked at magazines for over 10 years before I even thought of writing a book.

I don't have goals when writing books, apart from getting to the end. I have rather vague ideas about how I want things to feel, I'm big on ambience. I have a title, a beginning and a probable ending and go from there.

Every book has got its challenges. You run into a plot point that you can't figure out, or a scene that you struggle to write and have to write 50 times.

When I first started writing, I was in advertising at the time, I was doing most of my writing on weekends. I had studied most of the other series heroes and I figured it would be fun for mine to be different and put him in and around water. So I dreamed up Dirk Pitt.

I was really the first-line editor of the 'House of Night' series. I didn't write that much of the story, and I didn't know what was happening until my mom finished the book and sent it to me because I wanted to read it with fresh eyes as a general reader would.

Writing a book is very personal. It's a very personal relationship. A book will start with something as simple as two men talking about work. That gets the fire going. Sustaining that fire is the hard work. It takes attention and empathy to hone the characters.

They're naughty, all those writers - they mess around with people. I know James Gandolfini got a bit fed up on 'The Sopranos': if he said anything in front of a writer, told them a story from his life, it could make its way into the script.

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

I think back on that day when 16-year-old me scribbled on some silly piece of paper for some long-forgotten high school career-day project that my dream job was 'romance novelist.'

I think a conceptual idea comes to me first - something I've been mulling over a lot right before I feel like writing a book - and then the characters start to develop around it.

I love thinking of movie stars who could play the characters in the books I write.

I never wrote my books especially for children.