Homer Hickam Quotes

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

Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author.

I must write the book out in my head now, before I sit down.

I've been writing fiction probably since I was about 6 years old, so it's something that is second nature to me now. I just sit down and start writing. I don't sit down and start writing and it comes out perfectly - it's a process.

Somewhere along the line, I realized that I liked telling stories, and I decided that I would try writing. Ten years later, I finally got a book published. It was hard. I had no skills. I knew nothing about the business of getting published. So I had to keep working at it.

I would say, number one, don't worry about getting published. Just write. Number two, just write. Three is make sure you read.

I found some time ago that I have to be careful, while working on a novel, what I read.

I've never actually even contemplated writing a book or having a book.

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.

At a certain point my novels set. They set just as hard as that jam jar. And then I know they are finished.

The craft of writing is all the stuff that you can learn through school; go to workshops and read books. Learn characterization, plot and dialogue and pacing and word choice and point of view. Then there's also the art of it which is sort of the unknown, the inspiration, the stuff that is noncerebral.

I write. This is what I do. My job is to sit down with my vocabulary, select words, and decide what order they should be placed in an attempt to keep someone's attention and perhaps provide them with a laugh or two along the way.

I like writing books. I really love words. I love to read.

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.

Doing interesting things and then writing about them is the best way to become a good writer.

It takes me a very, very long time to write a story, to write a piece of fiction, whatever you call the fiction that I write. I just go about it blindly, feeling my way towards what it has to be.

Some people play the piano, some do Sudoku, some watch television, some people go out to dinner parties. I write books.

No one writes a great book every time out, or even a good book.

I have a lot of books I want to write.

I am never really surprised at the way my books take shape. They are just not as perfect as I'd like them to be.

I can't tell you exactly how I found it. It was just a process of writing a lot of stories and reading a lot of stories that I admired and just working and working until the sentences sounded right and I was satisfied with them.

I was so naive about writing, I went to the public library and checked out the only volume they had on the topic - an academic treatise about publishing from the WWII era.

With each book, you get better as a writer. There is no back door to the industry. Read in the genre you want to write, as the more you read, the better you will get as an author.

I had always loved to write and my mom was my editor for my school papers.

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