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10 of the Best Quotes About Writing from YA Authors
Writing is so often an isolated endeavor. You sit in your room or office or favorite coffee shop and try to create a story from nothing but words and will. But sometimes, you need a boost to keep you going. Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been writing since you could hold a pen, these 10 quotes (from YA authors who’ve Been There) offer advice, encouragement, and a reminder you aren’t alone.
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“Never feel that you’re ‘married’ to an idea, even if it was the original idea that sparked the story. It might have to go, like a scaffolding that comes down after a mural is painted.”
–Laini Taylor, author of Strange The Dreamer
“When we speak about context, we’re looking at something beyond the simple fact of setting. Setting is a place and a time, but when we add the complications of power, politics, privilege—then we are beginning to build a rich, nuanced environment to deploy our characters across. This is context.”
– Daniel José Older, author of Shadowshaper
“It is not just you who feels like a fraud, or isn’t sure if you’re a ‘real’ writer, or doesn’t know what a ‘real’ writer even means.”
–Dahlia Adler, author of Just Visiting
“A book, like a child, has its own life once it leaves my hands. For me, that’s one of the great charms of writing: that people interact with my novels unmediated by me, and they have the most interesting reactions, some positive, some negative, some mixed, at times provocative and even irritating or bizarre, and often thoughtful and enlightening.”
–Kate Elliott, author of Poisoned Blade
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“The rules on what is possible and impossible in the arts were made by people who had not tested the bounds of the possible by going beyond them.”
–Neil Gaiman, author of The Sleeper and the Spindle
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“If you’re struggling with what you’re writing—if you’re afraid to be your true self on the page—I dare you to stop listening to the outside voices and try listening only to yourself this one time. Write the book you most want to write…Write the book that is the most unapologetically YOU, no matter how long it takes.”
–Nova Ren Suma, author of The Walls Around Us
“The first draft isn’t about getting it right, it’s about getting it done.”
–Ava Jae, author of Beyond the Red
“I’ve come to believe that if you’re not scared at least a little by what you’re writing, it’s probably not important enough to write.”
–Malinda Lo, author of Adaptation
“Overnight Success is almost always a myth. Half of this industry is luck, and half is the refusal to quit.”
–Victoria Schwab, author of This Savage Song
“Every sentence needs a subject, verb, and explosion.”
–Corinne Duyvis, author of On the Edge of Gone