Wordcrafts - Writing and Editing

"The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it."

"Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death - fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant."

"The writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratification, is a curious anticlimax."

"A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."

"A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end... but not necessarily in that order."

"Writing is both mask and unveiling."

"I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension."

"Most editors are failed writers - but so are most writers."

"You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke."

"If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves."