The Adjective Habit

An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.

MARK TWAIN

Either You Want to Tell a Story Or You Don't

Either you want to tell a story or you don't. Do you want to draw attention to yourself and your own writing and your beautiful style or do you want to be invisible and let the story and the characters take over for the reader. That's what it comes down to for me. What comes into it with crime is just conflicts. I like conflict in any kind of popular art. There is no greater conflict than life versus death, so there it is. I'm not that interested in the crime aspect of my books. I am interested in the characters.

GEORGE PELECANOS

Swing for the Fences

Each time out should be a swing for the fences. Don't do base-running drills. You can do those on your own time.

TOBIAS WOLFF

You Want To Read A Book With Blood

I’ve always fought off becoming a beloved writer.... Once you get to be at a certain level of mastery, you get to be beloved. That’s something that I don’t really care about. Beloved author? Why is that important for me to become? It’s not. You want to read a book with blood. A lot of it.

LOUISE ERDRICH

Style Is a Relation Between Form and Content

Style is a relation between form and content. Where the content is less than the form, where the author pretends to emotion which he does not feel, the language will seem flamboyant. The more ignorant a writer feels, the more artificial becomes his style. A writer who thinks himself cleverer than his readers writes simply, one who is afraid they are cleverer than he, will make use of mystification: good style is arrived at when the chosen represents what the author requires of it without mystification.

CYRIL CONNOLLY

Get a Dog

Okay, you’re thinking, what does getting a dog have to do with becoming a writer? More than you’d think. Writing is about talent and creativity, but it’s also about discipline – about the ability to sit yourself down in that seat, day after day, often after eight hours of work, and make yourself do it, day after day, even if you’re not getting published yet, even if you’re not getting paid, even if ABC is hosting an all-star reunion of your favorite cast members from The Bachelor and The Amazing Race. It’s a form of training that’s as much physical as mental in nature – you sit down, you do the writing, no matter what distractions are out there, no matter that you’re tired or bored or uninspired.

Being a dog owner requires a similar form of discipline. You wake up every morning. You walk the dog. You do this whether you’re tired, depressed, broke, hung over, or have been recently dumped. You do it. And while you’re walking, you’re thinking about plot, or characters, or that tricky bit of dialogue that’s had you stumped for days. You’re out in the fresh air. Your legs are moving. Your dog is sniffing the butts of other dogs. It gives you a routine, a physical rhythm, a loyal companion, and a way to meet new people when you’re in a new place. It gets your body used to doing the same thing at the same time – and if you’re walking the dog for half an hour at the same time of every day, it’s an easy step to go sit in front of the computer and create for half an hour at the same time every day. So go to your local pound or rescue organization, and get a dog. Trust me. You’ll be glad you did.

JENNIFER WEINER

Inspiration Is Merely a Pretty Phrase for Work

I have learned, as has many another better writer, to summon inspiration to my call as soon as I begin my day’s stint, and not to hang around waiting for it. Inspiration is merely a pretty phrase for work. And it can be cultivated by anyone who has the patience to try. Inspiration which will not come at its possessor’s summons is like a dog that cannot be trained to obey. The sooner the both are gotten rid of, the better.

ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE

A Story Is Devious

What a story is, is devious. It pretends transparency, forthrightness. It engages with ordinary people, ordinary matters, recognizable stuff. But this is all a masquerade. What good stories deal with is the horror and incomprehensibility of time, the dark encroachment of old catastrophes.

JOY WILLIAMS

Try Writing at Night

At night, when the objective world has slunk back into its cavern and left dreamers to their own, there come inspirations and capabilities impossible at any less magical and quiet hour. No one knows whether or not he is a writer unless he has tried writing at night.

H.P. LOVECRAFT

We're All Novices When We Start A New Work

We're all there trying to make the story, novel, or chapter as good as it can be. It's a constant struggle to get it down, get it clear, and understand that your intentions are the same, whether you're an undergraduate writing a short story or a writer with seven published novels. The continually reassuring thing is that we're all novices when we start a new work.

ALICE McDERMOTT