Half the fun of writing a novel is finding out from other people later on what you actually meant.

Writing is like everything else: the more you do it the better you get. Don't try to perfect as you go along, just get to the end of the damn thing. Accept imperfections. Get it finished and then you can go back. If you try to polish every sentence there's a chance you'll never get past the first chapter.

...and I confess that, like a child, I cry. Ah, self-pity; I think we are at our most honest and sincere when we feel sorry for ourselves.

An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop.

The trouble with writing fiction is that it has to make sense, whereas real life doesn't.

It was the day my grandmother exploded.

What's one more meaningless act of violence on that zoo of a planet? It would be appropriate. When in Rome; burn it.