From Bruce Coville

The mega-talented Bruce Coville writes:

Never throw away a story just because you don't think it's working. I have sold stories 10, 15, and even 30 years after I wrote the first draft because I finally figured out how to solve them. (Or, in some cases, because my skills finally cuaght up to my ideas.) A large file of stories that don't quite work isn't a trash heap...it's a potential treasure trove!

From Nathan Bransford

Super West Coast Curtis Brown Agent/Extreme Blogger/Fab Writer Nathan writes:

Writers Write!

From Tina Wexler

Dynamo ICM agent Tina Wexler writes:

Having a daily word count can be great, but remember that sometimes when you're doing nothing -- sitting in traffic, staring out a window -- you're doing more work on your manuscript than if you were pounding on the keys. Allow yourself that time to ponder, to let your mind wander. The words will get written, but first you must find them.

From Jen Rofe

Andrea Brown super agent and delightful human being Jen Rofe writes:

In the last month, I've sold two projects that have taken me years -- literally -- to sell. I started subbing the first project in 2007. The other project -- 2005! Both authors revised multiple times. Both projects have gone to great houses.

So: Remain steadfast. And flexible.

From Yolanda LeRoy Scott

Yolanda LeRoy Scott, Editorial Director of Charlesbridge (and fabulous singer!), writes:

We editors take what has been written and improve it (one hopes). What writers do is infinitely more challenging and amazing to me: they create something from nothing. The blank page doesn't scare them.

From Richard Peck

I heard from eloquent writer and teacher Richard Peck, who wanted to share part of his most recent journey. He speaks about introducing his new (fall 2010) book, THREE-QUARTERS DEAD:

A bit of a departure. It's very contemporary, about a girl with a cellphone in one hand and the steering wheel in the other. And so a horror story. Real life is too extreme for fiction, so I've told it has supernatural horror. How strange to be writing a contemporary story for the first time this century. How strange to write about people who communicate chiefly by texting -- from the back of the classroom and from behind the wheel of the speeding car. How eerie to be writing in the depths of a recession that hasn't thinned the herds of top-of-the-line cars in suburban high-school parking lots.

From Rachel Abrams

Lovely HarperCollins Editor Rachel Abrams writes:

Never doubt your story. Your words hold the greatest potential of all: they may inspire future generations of readers and writers.

From Alvina Ling

Insightful Senior Editor at Little Brown, Alving Ling writes:



This is what I tell everyone, whether they're writers or on the publishing side or elsewhere. This is the little bit of advice that I have tacked up on my wall:



"Follow your compass, not your clock" - from Andrea Jung, CEO of Avon, as told to her by Ann Moore of Time Inc. (and who knows where it originated!)

From Kate Schafer Testerman

Wonderful agent and head of KT Literary, Kate Schafer Testerman writes:

Never Stop Reading.

From Laurie Halse Anderson

From the prolific and gifted writer Laurie Halse Anderson:

Revision means throwing out the boring crap and making what's left sound natural.