Quote of the Day (Peter James, With Advice for Beginning Authors)

“The two best pieces of advice I can give are: Firstly, read, read, read the biggest-selling books in the genre you want to write, and deconstruct them—literally dissect them—to analyze what made then work, what kept you hooked, what made you want to follow the characters. Writing is a craft, at one level—if you were going to be a doctor, as a medical student you would be given a cadaver to dissect, to learn how it all worked. If you wanted to be a car mechanic, you would take apart a car and its engine to see how they work. The second piece of advice is: love your characters—even the bad guys. That was terrific advice I was once given. If you think back on many of the most enduring villains in literature, they have something about them that makes you them. Frankenstein’s monster, telling the doctor that he didn’t want to exist—the doctor created him! Dracula: a monster, but charismatic and charming. Hannibal Lecter—a monster, but we like him, so we engage and, in a strange way, care for him.”—Mystery novelist Peter James, quoted by Andrew J. Gulli, “Interview: Peter James,” The Strand Magazine, Issue XXXVI (2025)

Quote of the Day (Michael Connelly, on the Importance of Writing 15 Minutes a Day)

“Something I was taught by a professor in a creative writing class, is that if you’re going to be a writer then you’ve got to write every day. Even if it’s only for 15 minutes. He added that—‘even if it’s only for 15 minutes.’ And that is actually the cool thing. The heart of that cliché is that even if you only write for 15 minutes a day, the story never leaves your head. It’s still churning in there. And that’s what’s important, because if you have that story turning in your head all the time, you reach a point where you just want to—you need to write it down. You want to get to that laptop or whatever you write on.”—American crime novelist Michael Connelly quoted by Andrew F. Gulli, “Interview With Michael Connelly,” The Strand Magazine, Issue LXXVII (2025)

What Connelly writes is true, and I would add other elements that operate in my case. First, 15 minutes don’t sound like much, but if you put enough of these segments together over time, you’ll eventually have something (even if it’s only a short blog post like this one).

Second, even if you’re struggling with the right words, transitions, or information to be conveyed, you don’t want to let the piece lie there. You want to finish the darn thing.

At the same time, don’t underestimate the importance of finding the best time of the day when your mind will be sharpest and you’ll have the fewest interruptions. For me, that’s when I’m in a coffee shop, with nobody calling, staring at a computer screen.

(BTW, my guess is that the professor that Connelly was talking about here was Harry Crews. In this YouTube video interview with David Perell, the novelist mentioned that this same advice was offered by Crews, “a Southern Gothic type of writer” who was teaching in Florida. Crews, who died in 2012, could be a hell-raiser, but at his best he could be evocative, as in this passage from his 1979 essay collection, Blood and Grits when he recounts slumping over a typewriter and popping pills in shame over his heritage, until he realized: “in that moment I literally saved my life, because the next thought…was that all I had going for me in the world or would ever have was that swamp, all those goddamn mules, all those screwworms that I'd dug out of pigs and all the other beautiful and dreadful and sorry circumstances that had made me the Grit I am and will always be….Since that time I have found myself perpetually fascinating.")

(The image of Michael Connelly that accompanies this post was taken on Oct. 15, 2010, by Mark Coggins from San Francisco.)

Quote of the Day (W.H. Auden, on Authenticity and Originality)

“Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.”— English poet-critic W.H. Auden (1907-1973), "Writing," in The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays (1963)

Quote of the Day (Robert Louis Stevenson, on a Writer’s Difficulty)

“The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish.” —Scottish man of letters Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894), “Truth of Intercourse” (1881), in Virginibus Puerisque

Quote of the Day (Henry David Thoreau, on Walking and Writing)

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live! Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow, as if I had given vent to the stream at the lower end and consequently new fountains flowed into it at the upper. A thousand rills which have their rise in the sources of thought burst forth and fertilize my brain. You need to increase the draft below, as the owners of meadow on Concord river say of the Billerica Dam. Only when we are in action is the circulation perfect. The writing which consists with habitual sitting is mechanical, wooden, dull to read.”— American essayist, naturalist and poet Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), journal entry, August 19, 1851, “Thoreau’s Journal (Part IV),” in The Atlantic Monthly, April 1905

Quote of the Day (Athol Fugard, on Rejecting Negativity)

“It came quite early in my life. I realised one day what is necessary is that you leave the destructive negative emotions…outside the door and close the door. The only emotion I sit with when I write is love.”—South African playwright Athol Fugard (1932-2025) quoted by Franklin Nelson, “Obituary: Chronicler of South Africa’s Painful Era of Apartheid,” The Financial Times, Mar. 15-16, 2025

Quote of the Day (Paul Auster, on Writing by Hand Vs. a Keyboard)

“Keyboards have always intimidated me. I’ve never been able to think clearly with my fingers in that position. A pen is a much more primitive instrument. You feel that the words are coming out of your body and then you dig the words into the page. Writing has always had that tactile quality for me. It’s a physical experience.”—American novelist Paul Auster (1947-2024), interviewed by Michael Wood, “The Art of Fiction No. 178,” The Paris Review, Issue 167 (Fall 2003)

The image accompanying this post, of Paul Auster at the 2007 Brooklyn Book Festival, was taken Sept. 16, 2007, by Piktor08.

Quote of the Day (Laurie R. King, on Persistence, ‘The Most Common Characteristic of a Successful Writer’)

“Persistence is the most common characteristic of a successful writer; the refusal to take ‘no’ for an answer. But also, keep learning. Keep reading other writers, to see how they do things. Keep thinking about the craft, and how you might do things better. Keep writing for the joy of the thing, not for what you're being told the market wants. But mostly, keep at it.”—American crime and science-fiction novelist and short-story writer Laurie R. King, asked for advice for aspiring writers, quoted by Andrew F. Gulli, “Interview: Laurie R. King,” The Strand Magazine, Issue LXXII (2024)

Quote of the Day (Virginia Woolf, on ‘A Writer’s Country’)

“A writer’s country is a territory within his own brain; and we run the risk of disillusionment if we try to turn to such phantom cities into tangible brick and mortar.” —English novelist-essayist Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), “Literary Geography” (1905), Times Literary Supplement, Mar. 10, 1905

Quote of the Day (Ford Madox Ford, on an Author’s First Lesson)

“The first lesson that an author has to learn is that of humility…. Before everything the author must learn to suppress himself: he must learn that the first thing he has to consider is his story and the last thing that he has to consider is his story, and in between that he will consider his story."—English novelist and editor Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939), Joseph Conrad: A Personal Remembrance (1924)

Quote of the Day (Margaret Forster, on the Burden and Satisfaction of Writing a Biography)

“With biography, you’re really weighted down with responsibility all the time. You’re fretting about, is this true? Is it fair? And then on top of that, am I making it readable? You know, you’re juggling so many things with biography. It’s a real sweat, a real grind. But on the other hand, it’s immensely satisfying. When you get to the end of it and you’ve done the job, then you feel—I feel—quite differently from a novel, when I think, ‘Okay, so I enjoyed it,  but after all, what is it?’”—English novelist, biographer, memoirist, historian and critic Margaret Forster (1938-2016), interview with Sue Lawley on Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4, Dec. 9, 1994

I came across a podcast featuring this quote after watching the famous adaptation of one of the novels of Margaret Forster, Georgy Girl, last week. I had known nothing about the author, so I was surprised to find out not only that she had written so much, but that a considerable body of her work consisted of biographies.

As co-author (with my friend Rob Polner) of a biography myself (An Irish Passion for Justice: The Life of Rebel New York Attorney Paul O’Dwyer), I identified completely with Ms. Forster’s anxiety about bringing a biography to the level she desired.

And I also could relate to a dilemma she mentioned in her interview with Sue Lawley: the fear of a discovery late in the project that could significantly alter or even delay publication. This occurred with Ms. Forster when working on her acclaimed, path-breaking biography of Rebecca novelist Daphne du Maurier.

While astonishingly prolific (25 novels and 14 works of nonfiction), Ms. Forster remains far better known in her native Britain than in the U.S. (In my local county library system, for instance, I could find only eight of her works.) But she sounds like an author whose works invite reading and whose dedication encourages imitation.

(For a warm and affectionate appreciation of the very private Ms. Forster, see Kathleen Jones’s 2016 post on her “A Writer’s Life” blog.)

Quote of the Day (Peter Turchi, on Writing as a Kind of Puzzle)

“The composition of every piece of writing is a kind of puzzle. This is true of a novel, a sonnet, an autobiographical essay, a play or screenplay, a love letter, and an email to a colleague about a problem at work. Whom do we address? With what tone? How should we begin? What do we want the reader to think or feel or understand? Is it best to be direct or indirect, sincere or disarming? Should we start with a joke? A quotation?” —American fiction writer, editor, and instructor Peter Turchi, A Muse and a Maze: Writing as Puzzle, Mystery, and Magic (2014)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Flannery O'Connor, With Bravery in the Face of Her Medical Condition)

“I have enough energy to write with and as that is all I have any business doing anyhow, I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing. ”— Southern novelist and short-story writer Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964), in a letter to poet Robert Lowell on being stricken with lupus, in The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor, edited by Sally Fitzgerald (1979)

Quote of the Day (Jonathan Swift, With Advice for an Aspiring Poet)

“Consult yourself; and if you find
    A powerful Impulse urge your mind,
     Impartial judge within your Breast
     What Subject you can manage best;
     Whether your Genius most inclines
     To satire, praise, or hum’rous Lines,
     To Elegies in mournful Tone,
     Or Prologue sent from Hand unknown.
     Then, rising with Aurora's Light,
     The Muse invok’d, sit down to write;
     Blot out, correct, insert, refine,
     Enlarge, diminish, interline;
     Be mindful, when Invention fails,
     To scratch your Head, and bite your Nails.”—Anglo-Irish minister and satirist Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), “On Poetry: A Rapsody,” in Restoration and Augustan Poets: Milton to Goldsmith, edited by W. H. Auden and Norman Holmes Pearson (1965)

Quote of the Day (Vivian Gornick, on Persisting at Writing)

“It's terrible, not to be able to work every day, but every day, in my long writing life, to come up against the fog in the head. The inability to think, to write another sentence. There are many days when I don't write anything. But I always sit down at the desk. Absolutely. Every morning, religiously.”— American feminist literary critic, journalist, essayist, and memoirist Vivian Gornick quoted by Alexandra Schwartz, “Look Again,” The New Yorker, Feb. 10, 2020

(Photograph of Vivian Gornick taken Oct. 4, 2018, through YouTube by librairie mollat.)

Quote of the Day (Annie Dillard, on How ‘A Schedule Defends From Chaos and Whim’)

“A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”—Pulitzer Prize-winning American essayist Annie Dillard, The Writing Life (1989)

Quote of the Day (Louise Erdrich, on Writing Within Limits)

“Limitations are a positive force in my life. I need them. When I am stuck, I often write within a form, to a deadline, or otherwise set up fences around what I can do. Perhaps the imposition of rules spurs me to break free. Writing a novel is always about establishing and then pushing against parameters." —American novelist and poet Louise Erdrich, “Soapbox: The Columnists—WSJ. Asks Five Luminaries To Weigh in on Single Topic; This Month: Limits,” WSJ., November 2017

(This photo of Louise Erdrich was taken in Rome on July 5, 2015 by Alessio Jacona.)

Quote of the Day (Shane O’Mara, on Writing and ‘A Walking Brain’)

“Before you start a creatively demanding piece of work, prime yourself by writing down a few questions about what you need to do. Then head off for a 20-minute stroll and bring a voice recorder or a notebook. You’re likely to find that you generate more ideas than you would have while sitting at your desk. A walking brain is a more active brain, and more activity in the brain can bring colliding ideas and associations at the edge of consciousness to mind—resulting in the ‘a-ha’ moment of insight.”— Shane O’Mara, professor of experimental brain research, Trinity College, Dublin, In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration (2020)

Quote of the Day (S.J. Perelman, on the Effort of Writing)

“I generally feel astonished at whatever I put down in the first place. The effort of writing seems more arduous all the time. Unlike technicians who are supposed to become more proficient with practice, I find I’ve grown considerably less articulate.”—Humorist and Oscar-winning screenwriter (Around the World in 80 Days) S.J. Perelman (1904-1979), interviewed by George Plimpton & William Cole, “The Art of Fiction No. 31,” The Paris Review, Summer-Fall 1963 issue

Quote of the Day (Ernest Hemingway, on His Antidote to Writer’s Block as a Young Man)

“Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.' So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there.”—American Nobel Literature laureate Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), A Moveable Feast (1964)

Not bad advice for those of us staring at a blank screen. It’s also, of course, even more beautifully written than I had remembered, with the images of the oranges and the fire combining, in a wholly organic way, into a symbol for the creative process, with the nonessential discarded into what’s left is something unusual and colorful: “the sputter of blue.”