Author Growth Quotes

With a novel, which takes perhaps years to write, the author is not the same man he was at the end of the book as he was at the beginning. It is not only that his characters have developed-he has developed with them, and this nearly always gives a sense of roughness to the work: a novel can seldom have the sense of perfection which you find in Chekhov's story, The Lady with the Dog.

You are - all your experience just kind of accumulates, and the novel takes a richness of its own simply because it has the weight of all those years that one's put into it.

I think a man turns into a writer by editing his own texts.

The idea of being productive, the idea of producing many books is going to lead you toward you becoming a better and better writer.

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

I've learned to really love revision over the years and worked hard to build up my craft muscle to make my revisions less and less painful with each book.

Certainly not every reader has liked every one of my books, but I think that's a good thing because it means I'm not repeating myself.

As I get older and write more books I'm definitely allowing the humorous side of my personality more rein in my work.

My first book is really comparable to what I do now, where it's pretty surreal and strange at moments, but that being my first book - I wrote that when I was 22; it came out when I was 24 - and it was just really overwritten. I just didn't trust myself as a writer to say something once.

'Gone-Away World' was a shotgun blast, an explosion out of the box I'd put myself into writing film scripts. 'Tigerman' is shorter, tighter, more crafted.

I always wrote. I wrote every day. I don't think I could have written 'Just Kids' had I not spent all of the '80s developing my craft as a writer.

When a writer declares that his first book is his best, that is bad. I progress successively from book to book.

Writers are born, not made. We can hone the craft. We need to try to encourage someone and make a dialogue, suggesting ways to do something differently or how to improve.

Then, of course, there are those sad occasions when a poet or a writer has not grown, and one has to let them go because they're just not making headway. But we have a very clear personal relationship with the authors.

The first novel I wrote was a monster - clocking in at 180,000 words - but it died a death, a death it deserved. It was called 'The Gods First Make Mad.' It was a good title, but it was the only good thing about the book. I didn't let that put me off.

I remain convinced that the most valuable use of time for a newly published author is to write a second book that's even better than the first, and a third that's better than the second, and on and on.

I think my writing has become "cleaner."

In literature the ambition of the novice is to acquire the literary language; the struggle of the adept is to get rid of it.

My second, third and fourth novels were mistakes, essentially.

After 'Where the Wild Things Are,' I guess I felt more confident as a writer.

My first two books, I was very close to my main character, stuck inside their head. And then with 'Arrogance,' I broke into many different voices. I introduce many different characters, and that helped me to develop a confidence to move between different characters, between different voices.

Good authors mature over time: it does take awhile.

The way I outline has changed quite a bit from when I first started writing.

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've evolved in my writing to tell a more emotional story - my publisher, Random House, has urged that.