Roger Zelazny Quotes about Writing

Occasionally, there arises a writing situation where you see an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a way for handling something, which may leave you looking stupid, ridiculous or brilliant -you

Occasionally, there arises a writing situation where you see an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a way for handling something, which may leave you looking stupid, ridiculous or brilliant -you just don't know which. You can play it safe there, too, and proceed along the route you'd mapped out for yourself. Or you can trust your personal demon who delivered that crazy idea in the first place. Trust your demon.

Roger Zelazny

Crazy, Stupid, Writing

I try to sit down at the typewriter four times a day, even if it's only five minutes, and write three sentences.

Roger Zelazny

Writing, Typewriters, Trying

I don't know that I ever wanted greatness, on its own. It seems rather like wanting to be an engineer, rather than wanting to design something--or wanting to be a writer, rather than wanting to write. It should be a by-product, not a thing in itself. Otherwise, it's just an ego trip.

Roger Zelazny

Writing, Greatness, Design

Roger Zelazny (2001). “Prince of Chaos”, G K Hall & Company

I see myself as a novelist, period. I mean, the material I work with is what is classified as science fiction and fantasy, and I really don't think about these things when I'm writing. I'm just thinking about telling a story and developing my characters.

Roger Zelazny

Writing, Character, Mean

"A Conversation With Roger Zelazny". Talking with Terry Dowling and Keith Curtis in Science Fiction Vol. 1, #2, June 1978.

One of my standard - and fairly true - responses to the question as to how story ideas come to me is that story ideas only come to me for short stories. With longer fiction, it is a character (or characters) coming to visit, and I am then obliged to collaborate with him/her/it/them in creating the story.

Roger Zelazny

Writing, Character, Ideas

My favorite form is the short story. From an aesthetics stand point you really have to pare down to the bone. You can't write a throw-away scene.

Roger Zelazny

Writing, Stories, Bones

"Phlogiston Forty Four: An Interview with Roger Zelazny". Interview by Alex Heatley, Phlogiston Forty Four, 1995.

I never plan ahead, with the exception of the Amber books which had to proceed in sequence. But I don't really like to know what I'm going to be working on a year in advance. So I just sign blank contracts for books and whatever strikes me as a good idea is what I write about.

Roger Zelazny

Book, Writing, Years

After a while the business end of writing takes too much of the writing time. Better to pay someone ten percent and find that you're still more than ten percent ahead in the end. Which is true. My present agent says that he always feels that a good agent during the course of a year should earn back for his client at least the ten percent he takes by way of commission, so the client's really nothing out. And what he should ideally do is make him more money than the ten percent.

Roger Zelazny

Writing, Years, Agents

"Phlogiston Forty Four: An Interview with Roger Zelazny". Interview by Alex Heatley, Phlogiston Forty Four, 1995.

Good evening, Lord Corwin,' said the lean, cadaverous figure who rested against a storage rack, smoking his pipe, grinning around it. Good evening, Roger. How are things in the nether world?' A rat, a bat, a spider. Nothing much else astir. Peaceful.' You enjoy this duty?' He nodded. I am writing a philosophical romance shot through with elements of horror and morbidity. I work on those parts down here.

Roger Zelazny

Philosophical, Writing, Smoking

Roger Zelazny (2000). “The Hand of Oberon”, G K Hall & Company