Jessica Abel Quotes

My mother taught me how to write.

We were living in Denver, Colorado, and I was teaching high school. I asked the kids to write a short story, so I thought I should write some myself.

I minored in creative writing in college, and I've played with the idea of doing something more hybrid, but comics are my first love.

Comics is still my first love. But I always did other kinds of writing, too, so I think of myself as a writer first.

I hope to continue writing. I hope to continue teaching.

I love graphic novels - I love reading them, I enjoyed writing them, I would love to go back and do them again. I hope I'm savvy enough to do them in the right way.

My passion has always been books and literature, and teaching.

Well, I'm always working on my comic strip and trying to, you know, keep cranking that out.

There was a long stint during my childhood after I gave up on being a pro football player - we're talking sixth grade here - that I strongly considered a future writing and drawing comic books. I have been making stuff up ever since.

I wrote my first five horror novels while I was teaching.

I think teaching keeps me honest because if I'm up in front of a class talking about what I think is important about fiction while knowing I myself have just failed to do that hours earlier at my computer - it's a good and humbling reminder.

I like learning things, and I like that writing comics is an excuse to look into new stuff and research and learn new things and hopefully put them in books.

When I was writing my first two books I was also freelancing and teaching and doing other odd jobs.

I was a writer. I just wasn't a very good one. I was lucky enough to have a playwriting teacher who told me that I'd be a better actor than I would a playwright.

I was a schoolteacher; I taught seventh and eighth grade, and I tried to write fiction on the side.

I've always had a foot in everything. As a kid, I was active in sports and theater. Now, I'm learning I have to focus a bit. I'm trying to get to next projects, like writing a screenplay. Once that comes together, I could put my mind to another book - maybe a fun kids' book.

I never took creative writing.

I've always liked writing. Even when I was in art school and thought I was going to be a gallery painter, I liked to pair my artwork with writing. And so that naturally led to drawing comics.

Writing and drawing comics for the sheer joy of it - that's true bliss.

The things I want to do mostly involve writing.

It's lovely to write for the youngsters because through your story, you can teach them the lessons of life.

When I was writing songs, I always thought I'd make more of a career out of the drawings, the comics even more than the music.

I'm not working on anything. I was trying to write something new . . . I guess the goal for me now, at least at this point, is to try to direct again.

I would say, A, you can't really teach anyone how to write good characters, because it's something you have to teach yourself or already have innately in you as a storyteller, and, B, coming up with a good screenplay is a very, very small fraction of what it takes to be a good screenwriter.

I've politely declined a few reality-type things but generally have been asked to do things that I'd enjoy. I'll be doing less in the new year so I can get some writing done.