The Craft Quotes
A blank page is no empty space. It is brimming with potential... It is a masterpiece in waiting -- yours.
All writers pen sad stories to garner sympathy, writing is after all for the abandoned of the society: the ink-leech, spewing black blood and sucking innocent souls.
Writing is work. It’s also gambling. You don’t get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but essentially you’re on your own. Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don’t whine.
I don’t just want a gripping story line. I shoot for the three dimensional literary Braille to a silent Scorsese movie
... yes I speak a different language - the dark fire of poetry - it flutters and gutters in tune with the mood...
If grammar is the skeleton of expression and usage the flesh and blood, then style is the personality.
My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vivdness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie....
...at seventeen I tried to write poetry confining myself solely to Anglo-Saxon words - don't know if it helped, but it made me more concrete ...
You are not an "author, " you are a writer. If your books are still selling like hotcakes ten years after your demise, THEN you're an author.
During 30 years of earning my daily bread as a writer I have learned many lessons about our craft. The most significant of those lessons is that I still have many lessons to learn about out craft.
Jeffrey Zeldman had an astonishing ability to craft a seductive coolness using educated references, dry humor, and retro/organic imagery.