Novels are written, not wished into existence. You have to sit your ass in the chair or nothing gets done.

Revision is not the end of the creative process, but a new beginning. It's a chance not just to clean up and edit, but to open up and discover. The energetic prose comes about from all the energy that went into crafting it, I suppose.

As a writer you can and should expect to hear conflicting responses to your story.

I was reading for understanding. I wanted to do to a reader what Salinger did for me.

Fiction begins with the senses, and the senses go to work in a place.

I revise like crazy. I start revising before the pen hits the paper.

Reading honest literature makes you love the world. Knowledge and understanding are love. Reading educates our feelings and enhances our sympathy. When you read for understanding, you are fundamentally changed. You are a different person at the end of the story or the novel than you were when it began.