Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.
It's never perfect when I write it down the first time, or the second time, or the fifth time. But it always gets better as I go over it and over it.
All writers write about themselves, just as the old storytellers chose to tell stories that spoke to and about themselves. They call it the world, but it is themselves they portray. The world of which they write is like a mirror that reflects the inside of their hearts, often more truly than they know.
Love the writing, love the writing, love the writing... the rest will follow.
Ideas are the cheapest part of the writing. They are free. The hard part is what you do with ideas you've gathered.
You write to be read. That is the bottom line.
Exercise the writing muscle every day.
If you want to write, you write. Talent is simply not enough.
Write, write, and write some more. Think of writing as a muscle that needs lots of exercise.
Growth in the ability to write comes in spurts.
Just write. If you have to make a choice, if you say, 'Oh well, I'm going to put the writing away until my children are grown,' then you don't really want to be a writer. If you want to be a writer, you do your writing... If you don't do it, you probably don't want to be a writer, you just want to have written and be famous—which is very different.
Readers re-create any story to suit their own needs. They re-clothe the story in their own shirts. Put simply: just as we write the story we need to write, they read the story they need to read.
