. . . to Keep in Mind When Reading, Writing, Rereading Your Work, and Rewriting

“Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window.” — William Faulkner

“You expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analogous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simple, but nourishing to the imagination. Hold the philosophy, hold the adjectives, just give us a plain subject and verb and perhaps a wholesome, nonfattening adverb or two.” — Larry McMurtry

“Find out what your hero or heroine wants, and when he or she wakes up in the morning, just follow him or her around all day.” — Ray Bradbury

“Build a concept around a conflict and characters audiences can root for. A dog that savagely kills its owners and then embarks on a search for new owners is a tough sell.” — Jennifer Lerch

“Real suspense comes with moral dilemma and the courage to make and act upon choices. False suspense comes from the accidental and meaningless occurrence of one damned thing after another.” — John Gardner

“The author makes a tacit deal with the reader. You hand them a backpack. You ask them to place certain things in it — to remember, to keep in mind — as they make their way up the hill. . . . If you hand them a yellow Volkswagen and they have to haul this to the top of the mountain — to the end of the story — and they find that this Volkswagen has nothing whatsoever to do with your story, you're going to have a very irritated reader on your hands.” — Frank Conroy

“There’s an old adage in writing:  ‘Don’t tell, but show.’ Writing is not psychology. We do not talk ‘about’ feelings. Instead the writer feels and through her words awakens those feelings in the reader. The writer takes the reader’s hand and guides him through the valley of sorrow and joy without ever having to mention those words.” — Natalie Goldberg

“The main reason for rewriting is not to achieve a smooth surface, but to discover the inner truth of your characters.” — Saul Bellow

“Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.” — Michelangelo

“You can’t know a book until you come to the end of it, and then all the rest must be modified to fit that.” — Maxwell Perkins

“Sit down and put down everything that comes  into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it." — Collette

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” — Scott Adams

 . . . on Writing for Children and Young Adults

“The characters in a children’s book must reach into the heart of the reader on page one. Emotional content is the main reason a child and a parent will go back to a book again and again.” — Rosemary Wells

“The children’s writer not only makes a satisfactory connection between [the writer’s] present maturity and his past childhood, he also does the same for his child-characters in reverse — makes the connection between their present childhood and their future maturity. That their maturity is never visibly achieved makes no difference; the promise of it is there.” — Philippa Pearce

“That adolescent me, the girl who was, as I remember her, insecure, unsure, dreaming, yearning, longing, that girl who was hard on herself, who was cowardly and brave, who was confused and determined—that girl who was me—still exists. I call on her when I write. I am the me of today—the person who has become a woman, a mother, a writer. Yet I am the me of all those other days as well. I believe in the reality of that past.” — Norma Fox Mazer

“Only as we give children the truth about life can we expect any improvement in it.” — Mabel Louise Robinson

“Sure, it’s simple, writing for kids. Just as simple as bringing them up.” — Ursula K. Le Guin

. . . to Keep in Mind During the Submissions Process

“In literature, as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.” — André Maurois

“Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” — Winston Churchill

“A query letter is like a fishing expedition; don’t put too much bait on your hook or you’ll lose your quarry. Be brief and be tantalizing!” — Jane von Mehren