A Quote by Kate DiCamillo

You have to learn how to write each book. — © Kate DiCamillo
You have to learn how to write each book.

Quote Topics

With each book you write you have to learn how to write that book - so every time, you have to start all over again.
One of the things about the arts that is so important is that in the arts you discover the only way to learn how to do it is by doing it. You can't write by reading a book about it. The only way to learn how to write a book is to sit down and try to write a book
Writing is a bit like swimming. You learn writing by doing it and you learn swimming by doing it. Nobody learns how to swim by reading a book about swimming and nobody learns how to write by reading a book about writing. If you want to learn how to write, write a lot and you will get better at it.
With 'Free Agent Nation,' I was figuring out how to write a book along with writing the book. Now I think I've kind of, sort of figured out how to write a book a little bit better. But the process remains not that different - slow; laborious; tiny, incremental progress each day, punctuated by feelings of despair and self-loathing.
When I write a team book, it's all about how they relate to each other and what they bring to the team and the book. Whether it's Black Canary and Huntress or Bane and Scandal, I look for a relationship that people can believe in, that they want to follow and learn more about.
Even my colleagues don't read classic criticism. And my feeling is that if you don't do that then you're not really practicing your craft. That's how you learn how to do it. You don't learn how to write about jazz just from listening to jazz. You learn how to write by reading the great writers and how they worked, the great music critics.
The only way to write a book, I’m fond of telling people, is to actually write a book. That’s how you write a book.
I have to re-write a lot. I couldn't tell you how many drafts I write, but I know I've done at least twenty rewrites on each book.
I know how to learn anything I want to learn. I absolutely know that I could learn how to fly the space shuttle because someone else knows how to fly it, and they put it in a book. Give me the book, and I do not need somebody to stand up in front of the class.
I am 55 years old now. It takes three years to write one book. I don't know how many books I will be able to write before I die. It is like a countdown. So with each book I am praying - please let me live until I am finished.
The best way to learn to write is to read in the genre you might be interested in; then, you need to actually sit down and write. In a lot of cases, the first book you write will not get published. Do not get hung up on that. Start a second book.
You have to surrender to your mediocrity, and just write. Because it's hard, really hard, to write even a crappy book. But it's better to write a book that kind of sucks rather than no book at all, as you wait around to magically become Faulkner. No one is going to write your book for you and you can't write anybody's book but your own.
Delia Sherman once told me that you never learn to write a story. You only learn to write the story you are currently writing. You have to learn how to write the next story all over again. And she's absolutely right.
You can't learn to write that way - by writing directly for the screen. Wait until you're 30. But in the meantime write 200 short stories. You've got to learn how to write!
Forget about Republican or Democrat - what about the kid in the middle of the country who wants to play the drums, the kid who wants to learn how to write a book, or the kid who wants to write a screenplay? We need to give them access to the arts. It's not fair that if you live in a different part of the country, you don't have the chance to learn. And it's not fair that if you don't have as much money, you don't have the chance to learn.
Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to contemplate works of art. Learn how to pray in the streets or in the country. Know how to meditate not only when you have a book in your hand but when you are waiting for a bus or riding in a train.
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