I’m not implying that fantasy is for kids. I’m saying that more and more people are finally realizing that there’s more to fantasy stories than elves and wizards and goblin armies.
If I could sum it up in 50 words, I wouldn’t have needed to write a whole novel about it.
I won the only duel I ever lost.
As a writer, I first felt successful before I was published.
There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.
Music is a proud, temperamental mistress. Give her the time and attention she deserves, and she is yours. Slight her and there will come a day when you call and she will not answer. So I began sleeping less to give her the time she needed.
In my opinion there are two basic questions that any writer tries to answer. “What is?” is the question non-fiction asks. “What if?” is the question fiction asks. That’s the question I’m more interested in.
Death was like an unpleasant neighbor. You didn’t talk about him for fear he might hear you and decide to pay a visit.
Each woman is like an instrument, waiting to be learned, loved, and finely played, to have at last her own true music made.
I am no poet. I do not love words for the sake of words. I love words for what they can accomplish. Similarly, I am no arithmetician. Numbers that speak only of numbers are of little interest to me.
The cost of a loaf is a simple thing, and so a loaf is often sought, but some things are past valuing: laughter, land, and love are never bought.
Speculative fiction is where my heart lies. It’s what I read growing up, and it’s what I read as an adult.
A poet is a musician who can’t sing.
You do not know the first note of the music that moves me.
Music sounds different to the one who plays it. It is the musician’s curse.
It’s the questions we can’t answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think.
In brief, worldbuilding is different than setting in my opinion. Setting is a room. A backdrop. It’s scenery. But without good worldbuilding, you can’t have realistic feeling scenery. You can’t have cool, unique backdrops for your story.
You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way.
We all become what we pretend to be.
I always read. You know how sharks have to keep swimming or they die? I’m like that. If I stop reading, I die.