Writing Resources Quotes

I'm not a writer. I haven't written anything.

I like high school and college writing textbooks and find them very helpful. Whenever I'm stuck and seem to have no ideas, I open one up and turn to the back. There I'll find questions like, "Have you had any experiences with an alcoholic or a sailor?"

I am very interested in people trying to write because I don't have a big academic background at all.

With the Internet, there are so many ways to connect with other writers who will be some of your best friends and best sources of support for your entire life.

To practice - write each and every day if possible - then try to attend professional writer's conferences where you can learn your craft, get to know fellow writers, and meet editors and agents.

Read everything you can on writing. Join online forums and critique groups, go to conferences, get feedback, and learn, learn, learn!

Grub Street Writers is the reason I've stayed in Boston. I started teaching for Grub back in 1997, when founder Eve Bridburg, a Boston University M.A. alumna, as I am, kindly gave me my first job out of grad school.

Every well-written book is a light for me. When you write, you use other writers and their books as guides in the wilderness.

To do the writing, I have to have time to do research.

I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.

I started creative writing classes at Aberdeen Central Library, and the writer-in-residence there, Todd McEwen, encouraged me a great deal. He showed my stories to his editor, and I thought that was just what happened to everyone who took his classes!

So I went out and bought myself a copy of the Writer and Artist Yearbook, bought lots of magazines and got on the phone and talked to editors about ideas for stories. Pretty soon I found myself hired to do interviews and articles and went off and did them.

Research can be a boon to a novelist - there are more things in heaven and Earth than can be dreamt of in a single writer's philosophy - or it can become a hindrance, a thick layer of algae that weighs down the storytelling.

If you haven't taken a writing class, take a writing class. I took every class that was available in my area. I went to conferences inside and outside my area to network with people. That's how I got my agent. I found my agent through another agent who was at a conference.

I believe strongly in writing groups such as Romance Writers Of America that offer support, information and networking.

I do have the feeling that other writers can't help you with writing. I've gone to writers' conferences and writers' sessions and writers' clinics, and the more I see of them, the more I'm sure it's the wrong direction. It isn't the place where you learn to write.

I always have a book that I use that somehow inspires my novels.

Most of the time I was in the Northeast, I lived in the country, and I think that helped me to discover my material for writing.

I always send new writers to 'Writer's Digest Books' line-up of how-to books. I read them all when I was starting out, and they were very helpful.

As an author and a burgeoning screenwriter, the fact of the matter is I cannot do this alone.

I think it is probably more important to attend specialized conventions for a journeyman writer than any other, but it's useful at all stages of a career, if for nothing else, to find out how the industry is working at any given time.

I just like being all over the place and writing whatever comes to mind. Having the tools? It's such a gift.

I like helping other writers who don't know what to do or where to go in New York.

Sometimes reading other writers helps. You learn some little technique that turns out to be useful, or simply are reinspired by the amazing things others do.

At first, teaching was more or less a straightforward way of making a living and having access to institutional resources while writing - aka libraries. And that was not inconsiderable. But it didn't in any way touch the writing. Maybe it would push the writing aside sometimes, but mostly it was fine.