Always trust computer games.
If you don't believe in yourself, who will?' ~Maybeck
Being a fiction writer is really like being an actor, because if you're going to write convincingly it has to sound right and play right. The only way that works is to emotionally and technically act out and see the scene you're in. There's no better job in the world, because when I sit down at that computer I'm the world's best forensics expert, if that's what I'm writing about that day. Or I'm some crazed psycho running down a dark alley. Or I'm a gorgeous woman looking to find a man that night. Whatever! But I'm all of those things, every day. How can you beat that?
Finn whispered, "What has a head, thorax, and abdomen, but stands six feet tall?" "A snowman?
Be careful what you wear to bed, because you never know where you might wake up.
There's a fine line between imagination and reality. An inventor dreams something up, and pretty soon, it's there on the table before him. A science-fiction writer envisions another world, and then some space probe finds it. If you believe in something strongly enough, I think you can make it happen.
The way you get better is putting words on the page and getting them behind you.
For the first-time novelist you've got to get up at 5:30 in the morning and write until 7, make breakfast and go to work. Or, come home and work for an hour. Everybody has an hour in their day somewhere.
Being right wasn't nearly as important as doing right.
As a young boy, I read 'Cheaper by the Dozen' and immediately became neurotic about my use of time. It taxed me severely, but only for the next 50 years. But I think it also allowed me to discipline myself to sit in the chair and be a writer, where one of the most needed qualities is patience.
When I do things I shouldn't do, my mother says I need a new pair of glasses -- that I should be be looking differently at the choices I make.
He likes you, too." Finn repeated. "And don't tell me to shut up." "Shut up!" -Kingdom Keepers, Shell Game
Walt loved technology. He didn't understand it half the time, but the beauty of good technology was that he didn't have to understand it. Just use it.
So planning something big." "If this is the work of the Overtakers, we've never seen anything like it." "It is," a voice said behind them. Maybeck slipped in alongside of them. "You about scared the pee out of me!" Charlene complained.
Okay, so let's run faster.
What is that in his hand?" "A cleaver. As in-" "Butcher's knife." "You got it." "I hope not." "He does not look happy." "Are you sure it's a he?" "I don't want to know.
My favorite novel is 'To Kill a Mockingbird' because of its broad sweep, its tackling of big issues in ways that even young minds can make sense of and for the heart of the characters, who span a wide range of ages. I reread it every year.
But listen up Alex Rider.
I'm still only half the writer I hope I will be.
I think every fiction writer, to a certain extent, is a schizophrenic and able to have two or three or five voices in his or her body. We seek, through our profession, to get those voices onto paper.
I've been running from, and toward, death all my life, more aware of it than a person should be.
True love isn't reserved for weddings and ceremonies. It's from the heart. That's all it has to be. All it ever is.
MEN, Charlene said. Leave that to you! Willa quipped.
Wayne was one of the worst drivers Finn had ever met. The bus nearly sideswiped two cars, then veered left and scraped its wheels against the curb, before smashing back down the roadway.
Jez had gone from an evil twin to a sweet, even angelic, girl, all in less than a minute.
