Writing tips from the great...

Some of you, I know will be embarking on the So You Think You Can Write adventure this month.


Obviously, my advice to you would be to read Liz Fielding's Little Book of Writing Romance, but here are a few words on the subject of writing from great writers and teachers to fire you up.

"Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia."  - Kurt Vonnegut

 "Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing." - Henry Miller Henry Miller on Writing

 "If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech." -
 John Steinbeck The Paris Review

"Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s." - Stephen King On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

"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." - Ernest Hemingway Ernest Hemingway on Writing,

"You begin to string words together like beads to tell a story. You are desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments of grace or joy or transcendence, to make real or imagined events come alive. But you cannot will this to happen. It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work. So you might as well just go ahead and get started." - Ann Lamott Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life