That's the funny thing about time. It is only in looking back that it's easy to connect the dots. To see exactly why everything needed to happen the way that it did.
Rebecca Serle
I don't really think of past experiences as 'mistakes' - I think everything brings us where we need to go and teaches us what we need to learn. I'm grateful for all my wobbles because I wouldn't be here without them.
By refusing to lend a hand, we are not only robbing our colleagues and peers of the opportunity to gain guidance, but we are also robbing ourselves of the opportunity to lead.
No love story ends or begins out of accordance with how it needs to go.
'Ready Player One' has it all - nostalgia, trivia, adventure, romance, heart, and, dare I say it, some very fascinating social commentary. The novel follows Wade Watts through the virtual reality world, the OASIS, and on a quest to uncover and unlock the secrets buried deep inside.
The best way to get me to write more books is to read the ones that exist!
'When You Were Mine' is about heartbreak.
If you see someone struggling, offer input. If someone comes to you with a question, don't assume they should seek a higher up for the answer.
You don't write a book. You write a sentence and then a paragraph and then a page and then a chapter. Looking at writing 400 plus pages or seventy thousand odd words is incredibly daunting, but if you just focus on the immediate picture - say, 500 words - it's not so overwhelming.
I am a very big 'Vampire Diaries' fan, and I was a huge Stefan and Elena fan. That love story was one of the most beautiful ones I had ever seen on screen. I loved it.
'Goodnight Moon' is a staple of any nursery bookshelf. So, too, are 'Harold and the Purple Crayon' and 'Madeline.' These books are just as much a part of mainstream reading culture as 'The Catcher in the Rye,' and they are passed down from generation to generation.
American fantasy is not a genre we think about too often. Sure, we are familiar with the worlds of English boarding school houses and castles and fairies, but true American fantasy, fantasy that is built on the land of this country, is hard to come by.
I think that one of the reasons Shakespeare withstands the test of time is that his themes are so universal.
Everyone has a story to tell, and in a perfect world, everyone would get the opportunity to tell it. Some of us have the stories, some of us have the words, and some of us have both. Let's honor the portions we bring to the table and give credit where credit is due.
At its heart, 'Mostly Good Girls' is about the pressures we put on ourselves to live up to ideas of perfection.
Shakespeare is so fundamental to the way we see story. A tremendous amount of narratives come from him - more than many authors are aware, I think.
I was a children's yoga instructor in high school, which was a lot of fun but hard work. I remember once trying to teach 13 three year olds how to do tree pose... not so easy.
When I write novels, it's just me alone in a room.
It was always a dream of mine to create a show.
If you want to be a writer, first and foremost, you must write. If you write, you're a writer. Period.
I certainly think that there's a little bit of me in all of my characters, because I feel like the only way you can write is if you put a little bit of yourself in there.
I used the second year of my MFA program to write a young adult novel and began pursuing picture books as well. I loved the economy of this art form, choosing, with pristine attention, the exact right words to tell the exact right story.
Picture books, while less in word count, are certainly not less important. There are unbelievably skillful authors writing in this vein. Authors like Jane O'Connor and Jon Scieszka.
My first novel, 'When You Were Mine,' was a very, very personal story and drew a lot on the people in my life and the relationships that I had.
When it comes to vampires, Daniel Gillies's Elijah is the cream of the crop. Since leaving 'The Vampire Diaries' to headline 'The Originals,' we've seen the brother of Klaus grow from the altruistic, steadfast, suit-wearing stud into a complicated, nuanced lead.
I first moved to New York, like many twenty-somethings before me, to be a grown up. I was attending an MFA program in the city, starting work at a nonfiction imprint at a reputable publishing house, and excited about being on track to becoming the writer I had always wanted to be.
I don't have to mumble something under my breath when someone asks me what I do anymore. I can just say, definitively, 'I'm an author.' And the best part? That's not a myth. That's just the truth.
Writers often like to talk about how intuitive the writing process is, but in truth, building a book is a remarkably unintuitive task. Or, to put it more accurately, you need a lot more than intuition. You need plot and characters. You need a setting. You need a theme that is relevant and supported by your text.
'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte has been my all-time favorite book since I was in middle school.
I think perfect happiness has a lot to do with peace. For me, I get peace from writing, from the people in my life, and from yoga - om!
Leave horror previews for horror movies. At least you know the people going have made a choice that they want to see them.
It takes a lot for a show to withstand the test of time.
The first thing I thought when I finished Ernest Cline's 'Ready Player One' was, 'My God, it's the grown-up's 'Harry Potter.'' Now this is from a mega 'HP' fan, so I mean business, here.
So many tend to brand the Internet as the downfall of youth, but 'Ready Player One' hints that it's more complicated than that.
The adult fiction and writing for children portions of my MFA program were kept very separate, and there was a stigma around those 'kid people.'
It is my greatest wish to teach children what I now believe: that writing is not a burden but a joy.
Part of the job of a children's author is to write books that will be remembered, definitely, but if I might go out on a limb, I will say that the other part, the more important part, is to build books that will help children fall in love with reading. That, to me, is the real job.
I have often said that I think children's books are like poetry. Finding the exact right words to tell a story is something all writers, regardless of genre, are challenged to do, but it is in children's that the art of selection really becomes an art.
Children's authors have to pick words that reflect the spirit of a book and convey its message but also words that light children up, that children will recognize. Words that inspire and comfort. Words that challenge yet don't patronize. Words that, well, mean something to them.
Picture books have terrible PR amongst the children of this country. Ask any librarian: after a certain age, children just aren't interested in the picture book section anymore. It's filled with moms, strollers, and unbalanced toddlers.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: writing picture books is an art - the art of word choice.
I always say it's a shame picture books get such a bad rep. Illustrations are tough to sell older kids on!
Of course YA authors have a responsibility to their audience.
The truth is that 'Twilight' is not a story about Bella and Jacob. It's a story about Bella and Edward. That was the story this writer wanted to tell.
I remember what it feels like to be fourteen or sixteen, to have the world folded out in front of you, and to have a million choices ahead. I also remember what it feels like to be so open and impressionable and to want something so badly it's impossible to see that maybe it isn't the best thing for you.
At its best, writing is a dialogue. It's one of the things I love about children's: the fact that this dialogue is really there from the get-go, from the start of writing.
The truth is there are people who love horror movies. I don't happen to be one of those people.
I don't watch horror films, because I don't want those images in my psyche, and I resent having them forced on me before a movie of my choosing.
I've tried in the past to blog about ghostwriting and have failed. I have a lot of opinions on the whole issue, and I'm constantly censoring myself to make sure I don't just sound like a bitter writer.
Let me get something straight: I have no problem with ghostwriting as a thing unto itself. What bothers me is the way it's shrouded in secrecy, ignored to the point of straight-up lying. Why not be honest?
