Kate DiCamillo Quotes

Sometimes I can spend as long revising a manuscript as I spent writing it in the first place.

I always read what I write out loud, and I did that long before any radio thing. My editor finds that unusual.

I read what I write over and over and make corrections and improvements, until I reach the conclusion that the material deserves to stand on its own.

Writing is revision. All prose responds to work.

I write longhand and I type and I rewrite on the typed pages.

You’ll learn that the key to a great book is editing-grindin g, buffing, and polishing-not writing.

People think that writing is writing, but actually writing is editing. Otherwise, you're just taking notes

The writing is what gives me the joy, especially editing myself for the page, and getting something ready to show to the editors, and then to have a first draft and get it back and work to fix it, I love reworking, I love editing, love love love revision, revision, revision, revision.

I have a problem with blogs - all the best writers benefit from edits.

Truth is, every writer has to be a good editor, and you have to edit yourself. It's a skill every writer has to acquire.

My first draft is always way too long; my books start out with delusions of 'War and Peace' - and must be gently disabused. My editor is brilliant at taking me to the point where I do all the necessary cutting on my own. I like to say she's a midwife rather than a surgeon.

Writing is rewriting; rewriting is writing - from the first crossed-out word in the first sentence to the last word inserted above a caret, that most helpful handwritten stroke.

After my husband spell-checks one of my manuscripts, my editor says, 'It's been Normanized.'

Revision is the heart of writing. Every page I do is done over seven or eight times.

I feel sorry for people who have to edit me. Which is why book writing is by far the most enjoyable. Really the only thing it's based on is whether it's good or not. No book editor, in my experience, is getting a manuscript and try to rewrite it.

For every issue, I send four pages of finished marginals and they select the ones they need.

Manuscript: something submitted in haste and returned at leisure.

I never leave a sentence or a paragraph until I'm satisfied with it.

It's not hard to write poorly. But to write something good, it has to be revised.

I'm constantly revising. Once the book is written and typed, I go through the entire draft again.

I probably spend 90% of my time revising what I've written.

It's funny because you know the novel process: you get the drafts, you get the galley, and then you get the galley proofs. You have opportunities to change things all along. But the further along in the process you go, the more careful you have to be in making those changes, and the smaller the changes have to be.

Five people read my work before its ready for publication, and I solicit opinions from all of them: my wife, my agent, my editor, and my parents.

Everybody needs an editor.

My secret weapon is my wife. She's the best judge. She's a scientist and a natural reader. We've developed a detailed code for how she marks a manuscript, and I think it's what saves me from wild digressions.