Quotes from Tomi Adeyemi

You need a community to succeed. In the back of every book is an acknowledgments page full of all the people it took to get that writer to the book you're holding.

I've been writing stories all my life. My very first story had two little black girls riding horses. They were both me, too, so that's how into me I was.

My very first story, I was around 5, and I really just wrote myself. When I was 5, I loved myself so much I gave myself a twin named Tomi. Everything started out fine. But then I didn't write another black character until I was 18.

The YA author community is generally pretty friendly, and they care.

The things I want to do mostly involve writing.

Everyone has a story that they read when they were younger that influenced them.

The knowledge and insights you can get in just one day at a writers' conference make it worth the trip.

It's not about creating something that eight billion people would like. It's about creating something and being able to reach the maybe, like, one million people that would like it a lot.

With the Internet, there are so many ways to connect with other writers who will be some of your best friends and best sources of support for your entire life.

We like epic stories, we like adventure, we like epic fights, so if you can mix a great story that can also really teach someone about a different experience, you have the potential to really help people.

In terms of people who want to be writers, I wish more people knew how much work it was.

You can make something out of every unfinished story and every rejection if you work at it.

I spent 12 years of my life writing stories without black people. That's insane to me. It's insane that I could have believed in magical portals and dragons and all that stuff, but to believe a black person could be experiencing those things was unimaginable.

I will always be my hardest critic. Nobody else will ever be able to come at something I do harder than I come at myself.

With a fantasy world, it's like, this is my world. I literally made it. So if I tell you something, you do have to sit back and observe more. You need to sit back and listen more to understand what is going on or what's happening in the world. And I think there's a lot of power in that.

I want to give something to the world that I feel I missed out on as a child, and I want to help people of all races, ethnicities, and orientations understand that no matter what differences we may think we have, everyone is a human, and everyone deserves to be respected and valued.

At every writers' conference, you have the opportunity to hear from best-selling authors, top literary agents, and excellent editors who will demystify the publishing industry and give you great advice, no matter where you are in your writing career or what you're currently struggling with.