A Quote by William Zinsser
All writers should strive to deliver something fresh-something editors or readers won't know they want until they see it.
Related Quotes
Don't try to guess what sort of thing editors want to publish or what you think the country is in a mood to read. Editors and readers don't know what they want to read until they read it. Besides, they're always looking for something new.
You can write the best book you can, and that might still not be enough. Appeal isn't something that most writers can't strive for or identify. It's something even the best agents and editors can't always identify.
Don't market yourself. Editors and readers don't know what they want until they see it. Scratch what itches. Write what you need to write, feed the hunger for meaning in your life. Play at the serious questions of life and death.
It's a shame publishers send rejection slips. Writers should get something more substantial than a slip that amounts to a pile of confetti. Publishers should send something heavier. Editors should send out rejection bricks, so at the end of a lot of years, you would have something to show besides a wheelbarrow of rejection slips. Instead you could have enough bricks to build a house.
When I'm an audience member I do not want to go and see something that I already know, I want to see something that I don't know. I want to be surprised and stimulated to think about something. I want the magic. I want to be in a situation of uncertainty; that's what excites me.
I don't want to be embarrassed when I go to see something on the screen. I don't want to listen to foul language, watch a lot of violence or see something immoral. I prefer stories with sensitivity and family values; films that strive to lift you up to a higher place in life.
There are writers, and there are readers who want something more. They want to get at the grist of life.
You never know anymore if you'll see something you don't want to see, if you're jealous of something, if you're going through a breakup and you see something, so I just don't even look at those things any more [ in Instagram].
Writers don't want to appear to be stupid. I don't know - maybe people become writers so that they can prove that they're not. Of course getting a book published doesn't mean that they're not stupid. At a certain point you have to stop trying to prove something and write because you need to think about something and want to communicate, in a very broad sense.
As an aspiring artist, you should strive for originality of vision. Have something to say and a fresh way of saying it. No story is worth the writing, no picture worth the making, if it’s not the work of the imagination.
Opportunities may come along for you to convert something -something that exists into something that didn't yet. That might be the beginning of it. Sometimes you just want to do things your way, want to see for yourself what lies behind the misty curtain. It's not like you see songs approaching and invite them in. It's not that easy. You want to write songs that are bigger than life. You want to say something about strange things that have happened to you, strange things you have seen. You have to know and understand something and then go past the vernacular.
I want people to know about these visionary artists. I want people to know what they stand for and (that) they are representing something unique, something fresh. I am just so excited about their careers.
There's a double standard between writers and readers. Readers can be unfaithful to writers anytime they like, but writers must never ever be unfaithful to the readers.
The fact of the matter is I always have a really high sense of responsibility to the reader, whether it's a few readers that I get or a lot of readers, which I was lucky enough to get with 'Olive.' I feel responsible to them, to deliver something as truthful and straight as I can.
You should always be dedicated and know that, if you strive to do something, you can achieve it.
I don't want to sound pretentious or meta or anything, but I don't write until it comes to me... People know when something is inspired and when something is not, and I don't want to waste anyone's time.
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