Steve Toltz Quotes

I revise obsessively. It's important to me to have a clean page.

People might be surprised to know how much I throw away. For every page I publish, I throw 10 pages away.

You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page.

I write slowly. I actually write quickly, but I throw out so much material.

I rise at 6. Strong coffee helps me face the paper edition of 'The New York Times.' It daily challenges my own capacity for faking anything deranged enough to sound true. I work till 2 P.M. unless I am in the throes of finishing something. I rewrite to be reread.

If you rewrite a paragraph fifty times and forty-nine of them are terrible, that's fine; you only need to get it right once.

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

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

I can work on a verse for a very long time before realising it's not any good and then, and only then, can I discard it.

I spent the entire morning inserting a comma; I spent the whole afternoon removing it again.

Songwriting is a burst of inspiration and then a long bit of work and a tremendous bit of desperation.

The first draft of anything is sh*t.

There are days when the result is so bad that no fewer than five revisions are required. In contrast, when I'm greatly inspired, only four revisions are needed.

If you do improvising, it can sometimes end up being a waste of time. And if you do that, it's more or less based on a writing process.

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.

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 write about eight hours a day, and I throw away most of what I write.

The whole joy of writing comes from the opportunity to go over it and make it good, one way or another.

There are many challenges I face while working on a book. Working within deadlines and schedules is certainly one of the bigger ones for me. I want to create the best possible book I can for my readers with words and pictures - and that takes time to get it just right.

Sometimes I write less than I'd like but do research. Other times, editor's notes or a copy-edited manuscript or page proofs for a forthcoming novel mean that I need to put my attentions elsewhere for a day or two, but I always come back to writing.

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.

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.

Get your butt in a chair and write. If it comes out weak or bad or clunky or ordinary, then accept that this happens to everyone. Everyone. Get it down, get it done, and fix it in the rewrite. Just like everyone from Stephen King to J. K. Rowling to Chuck Palahniuk does.

I write slowly, and I write many, many drafts. I probably have to work as hard as anyone, and maybe harder, to finish a poem. I often write a poem over years, because it takes me a long time to figure out what to say and how best to say it.