Best Writing Advice

The LadyKillers is an award winner—Top Mystery Book Blog for 2010.  Its posts are both fun and instructive.  An example is the October 26th post by Penny Warner titled The Best Writing Advice I Ever Heard:

• “There's nothing to writing.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.”  [Walter Wellesley Smith]
• “I try to leave out the parts that people skip.”  [Elmore Leonard]
• “If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”  [Toni Morrison]
• “Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning:  I wanted to know what I was going to say.”  [Sharon O'Brien]
• “The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air.  All I must do is find it, and copy it.”  [Jules Renard]
• “I love being a writer.  What I can't stand is the paperwork.”  [Peter De Vries]
• “What no partner of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when she's staring out of the window.”  [Burton Rascoe]
• “You can't wait for inspiration.  You have to go after it with a club.”  [Jack London]

My favorite is Sharon O'Brien's quote because that is how I feel about writing my Mark Rollins adventure mysteries.  I have never been able to work with an outline.  I am always surprised by the story and the turns it takes.  I never know what a character will say until they have said it on paper (or the computer screen).  For me, writing is as entertaining as reading; I can’t wait to turn the page.