Quotes About Authorship

When you write a book, you have total control of the universe and everyone in it.

Writing was one of the things that saved me: the discipline and abstraction of putting my life into words, every day, helped me to cope with shame and its first cousin, despair.

If you had told me in 1997 that even 5 people would be waiting online for me to sign my new book in 2009, I would have jumped around like Joe Carter in the 1993 World Series. I love it. I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't like it. The only thing I worry about is carpal tunnel syndrome - my last tour almost caused it.

Aside from his other achievements, Winston Churchill wrote a six-volume, 1.9m-word account of the second world war and his role in winning it.

Working with Dav Pilkey was a dream come true. Dav is incredibly funny, and he's been a hero of mine for a long time. It was great bringing the 'Wimpy Kid' and 'Captain Underpants' worlds together!

When I write fiction, I have the illusion of being able to control these fictional worlds and these characters, and to make them say what I want them to say. Of course, the problem is that it is an illusion, and by the end of it you realize that you're not in control of it at all; the characters have taken over, and they're driving the vehicle.

I am the worlds laziest writer.

I love building out the worlds of my fiction with fictional books.

We often compare the experience of writing a book to that of playing God. It is up to us, and only us, to determine what happens to the people we invent. It is for us alone to determine what is good and bad, just and unjust, appropriate and inappropriate for the worlds we create. I love that about writing books.

'Constructed Worlds' comes from a novel draft that I wrote in my early twenties and reread/revised only in my late thirties.

I really am so grateful to get to do what it is I love - build worlds. Most of my job is playing make-believe, getting to know the people in my head, and letting them help me tell their stories.

Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. Le Guin were the biggest inspirations for my work because they trod into areas considered to be owned by male writers and created these worlds that are infused with an understanding of so much more than just technology.

Am I worried people will say I'm repeating myself? Sure. One thought I had was to publish it as a novel but eventually I just decided to do what I wanted to do.

One thing that worried me was how writers get categorized and so they end up having to write the same kind of book again and again. That is fine if it is what you want to do, but I would rather be locked in the trunk of my car with a weasel than write the same book every three years until I die.

I always worried that the creative well would dry up. I was sure that if I wrote a book a year, I would eventually run out of ideas. Actually, the opposite has been true for me. The more I write, the more ideas come to me and it gets easier.

I am always worried that over-planning and outlining will kill the magic of writing; most of the world I created in 'California' occurred via good old sexy sentence-making.

I've never worried about 'the reader' because there isn't one. There are thousands, and they all have strong opinions, from 'Magician' was the best ever,' and I've gone downhill since to 'The new book is the best ever,' so to whom to I listen? So I write for myself and hope other people like it.

I'm not as worried about the process of writing, simply because I think I've got that one down, you know? I think I know what brings specificity to these ideas, what brings specificity to the genre elements, or anything else, and it's personal emotions.

If you want to be a writer, don't worry so much about writing. Read as much as you can. Read as many different writers as you can. Soak up the styles.

I've always believed in writing without a collaborator, because where two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worry and only half the royalties.

I never worry about people not taking my work seriously as a result of the humor. In the end, the comic's best trick is the illusion that comedy is effortless. That people imagine what he's doing is easy is an occupational hazard.

Words don't come very easily to me. Which, given my profession, is a worrying impediment.

I've always set my stories in places I know well. It frees me up to spend more imaginative time on the characters if I'm not worrying about the logistics.

I really think it is possible to make a very nice living by writing and not worrying about anything else.