The biggest mistake you can make is assuming that creativity will hit you all at once and the muse will carry you to the end of the book on feather wings while Foster the People plays gently in the background. Storytelling is work. Pleasurable work, usually, but it is work.
In a culture defined by shades of gray, I think the absolute black and white choices in dark young adult novels are incredibly satisfying for readers.
Mother and daughter like spoons in a drawer.
I feel like I have so many stories basting in my mind, and they come busting out when they’re ready.
I don’t think I could ever give up music. It’s what makes me tick. If there was no music, there would be no writing.
I focus on the elements of a movie that are meant to invisibly affect me as a viewer. The edges. As an author, Im aware of how the subconscious things can pluck at a readers emotions, and I love it when filmmakers do the same.
When you were born, the rivers dried up and the cattle in Rockingham County wept blood.
So here’s my theory, and this is such crap science, I don’t have to tell you. It’s science without microscopes, blood tests, or reality.
I’d be happy with this summer if it’s all we ever had.
There’s no such thing as a good book or a bad book. There’s a book that matters to a reader.
My good mood felt like an endangered species.
I remembered standing in the middle of the street in front of The Crooked Bookshelf, filled with the certainty of a future. I had heard the wolves howling behind the house and remembered how glad I had been to be human.
A novel is a conversation starter, and if the author isn’t there for the after-party, both the writer and the reader are missing a lot.
I am an introvert. I should get that out there now.
I do all of my good thinking at over 65 miles per hour. The speed limit is, luckily, the same speed as my brainstorming speed.
I’m not looking for self-control.
She liked to imagine him stealing a glimpse of her over the backyard fence, proudly watching his strange daughter daydream under the beech tree. Blue was awfully fond of her father, considering she’d never met him.
Fro and to in my dreams to you To the haunting tune of the harp For the price I paid when you died that day I paid that day with my heart Fro and to in my dreams to you With the breaking of my heart Ne’er more again will I sing this song Ne’er more will I hear the harp.
Finn never looks more excited – he just gets faster. Finns are generally slow-moving creatures.
My father said once that if I didn’t have my mother’s ginger hair, I wouldn’t blush or curse as easily. Which I though was unfair. I hardly ever curse or blush, even though I’ve had plenty of days that required both.