Lester del Rey told me repeatedly that the first and most important part of writing fiction is just to think about the story. Don't write anything down. Don't try to pull anything together right away. Just dream for a while and see what happens. There isn't any timetable involved, no measuring stick for how long it ought to take. For each book, it is different. But that period of thinking, of reflection, is crucial to how successful your story will turn out to be.
Terry BrooksYou can either give in to what youre feeling, just say โokay, enough is enoughโ and be done with it, or you can fight it.
Terry BrooksWe are constantly being put to the test by trying circumstances and difficult people and problems not necessarily of our own making.
Terry BrooksThere is poetry in fiction. If you cannot see it and feel it when you write, you need to step back and examine what you are doing wrong. If you have not figured out how to write a simple declarative sentence and make it sing with that poetry, you are not yet ready to write an entire book.
Terry Brooks