When itโs too good, you do it over again. Too good is too easy. If itโs too easy you have to worry. If youโre not lying awake at night worrying about it, the reader isnโt going to, either. I always know that when I get a good nightโs sleep, the next day Iโm not going to get any work done. Writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. Itโs not all inspirational.
James M. CainShe was a little given to rehearsing things in her mind, and having imaginary triumphs over people who had upset her in one way and another.
James M. CainA home is not a museum. It doesn't have to be furnished with Picasso paintings, or Sheraton suites, or Oriental rugs, or Chinese pottery. But it does have to be furnished with things that mean something to you.
James M. CainI make no conscious effort to be tough, or hard-boiled, or grim, or any of the things I am usually called. I merely try to write as the character would write, and I never forget that the average man, from the fields, the streets, the bars, the offices and even the gutters of his country, has acquired a vividness of speech that goes beyond anything I could invent, and that if I stick to this heritage, this logos of the American countryside, I shall attain a maximum of effectiveness with very little effort.
James M. Cain