We think we know what we are doing. We have always thought so. We never seem to acknowledge that we have been wrong in the past, and so might be wrong in the future. Instead, each generation writes off earlier errors as the result of bad thinking by less able minds - and then confidently embarks on fresh errors of its own.
Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.
Writing a book is a bit like going on location for a movie. You're absent from your life, your family, and your friends. You're psychologically gone, so you might as well be physically gone.
When I sit down in front of a Windows machine, I can't write; when I sit down in front of my Mac, I can write. So I only use Macs.
Sneaking up on it sometimes helps: I've found I can be very productive for an hour before dinner, because there obviously isn't enough time to really do anything, so I can tell myself I'm just screwing around.
At forty, I was too old to work as a programmer myself anymore; writing code is a young person’s job.
