Writing is revision. All prose responds to work.
On the other hand, I mean, that is what writers have always been supposed to do, was to rely on their own devices and to - I mean, writing is a lonely business.
To be understood a writer has to explain almost everything.
I always say that if you're a novelist, the challenge is not writing what you think ought to happen, but trying in some way to write what did happen in a world that doesn't necessarily exist.
The duty and the task of a writer are those of an interpreter.
The more books we read, the clearer it becomes that the true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and that no other task is of any consequence.
I like writing non-fiction - and when you pick a [non-fiction] subject, it saves you the hassle of coming up with a plot.
I like to do the research of history and the creativity of writing fiction. I am creating this thing which I think is twice as difficult as writing either history or fiction.
The search for the word gets no easier but nobody else is going to write your novel for you.
It's a responsibility of the writer to get the reader out of the story somehow.
What's on the page dictates a lot of what I do. When the words are there, it's easy.
Anyone who undertakes the literary grind had better like playing around with words.
Our job, as writers is to do our jobs.
How much research I have to do depends on the nature of the story. For fantasy, none at all.
A writer's job is to give the reader a larger vision of the world.
