Telling someone to be confident in the abstract is not going to make it easier for the unconfident writer to actually get herself or himself to the point of being able to put in the upsetting stuff.

We have to give our poor, innocent, and undeserving-of-our-badness characters trouble in order to make them characters in a story.

Sometimes it's interesting to see what people who have too much control need to do to write freely.

I think a day in your life on which nothing bad happens may be a wonderful day, but it probably isn't going to be the basis of a story.

Writers sometimes are paid a great deal of money, but much more frequently they're not paid or are paid only a little bit.

I get to a certain point, and I think in a novel it's about the third draft, when I want other eyes on it.

When I've taught writing to five, six, and seven year olds, it's not very different than talking to an adult writer. They're writers then, and when they get to be young teenagers they're not anymore. You might go and talk to them about writing, and they'll be very self-conscious or will have detached themselves from the group.