Tawni O'Dell Quotes

If you write enough, you begin to learn to do things. But in a way, you do start from zero each time.

Writing has taught me a lot - though far from everything - about writing, so as time has passed, it has become more pleasurable if not easier. I've done other things in life, but writing is by a factor of 10 the most difficult among them. And, of course, you never achieve what you set out to achieve, so you must keep on trying to do better.

Every story I write is different. Some are hard. Some aren't. 'Chronicle' was tremendously easy. I have a hard time comparing my process on different things, but I will say this: The more you write, the better you get at it. That's one of the few things that's markedly true.

When I was starting out, I did not do short fiction well, because I kept wanting to write books.

I have always found writing very difficult.

I want to be a better writer. I want to learn and grow, to know how to tell stories in a different and more challenging way. I've learned it doesn't get easier each time. It actually gets harder.

I hadn't meant to do the pattern of publishing short stories and then a novel. I thought, 'I'm a novelist. I know it.' But you have to kind of write a lot of bad novels before you can write a good one, I think, so I did that. But meanwhile, I loved the short stories I did.

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.

I'm not a born writer, and I don't enjoy writing.

The hardest novel to write was Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.

I love writing journalism because it's all over in two hours and comes straight off the top of the head. Writing novels is soooooo much harder. It's the hardest thing I've ever done.

Most people won't realize that writing is a craft. You have to take your apprenticeship in it like anything else.

With each book you write you have to learn how to write that book - so every time, you have to start all over again.

Like many writers, I started by writing short stories. I needed to learn how to write and stories are the most practical way to do this, and less soul-destroying than working your way through a lengthy novel and then discovering it's rubbish.

Each novel is harder than its predecessor because I must work harder at not repeating myself. However, I enjoy the challenge. This is the greatest job in the world.

I personally feel I still have so much to learn as a writer; each novel is better than the one before, just because I'm getting better at it.

Writing is one of the few activities where quantity will inevitably make quality. The more you write, the better you're going to get at it.

I was a housewife, so I learned to write in times off, and I don't think I ever gave it up, though there were times when I was very discouraged because I began to see that the stories I was writing were not very good, that I had a lot to learn, and that it was a much, much harder job than I had expected.

It takes practice to do anything unique within this field, period, in writing, practice doing anything unique in writing.

Early on, I tried fiction, but I wasn't very good at it. I wrote a very bad novel that is thankfully sitting in a drawer somewhere.

Your first book is kind of a labor of ignorance. You don't realize the difficulty of it. Your second book is sort of a labor of fear. Then you sort of either hit a stride, or you don't.

I'm a competent novelist. I'm getting better. But I'm a really good short story writer.

I feel more comfortable each time I sit down to write, but I'm determined to get better and better.

Holy cow - everything about writing a novel is hard for me.

No time you spend writing will be wasted - even if you write something that's bad.