A Quote by Louise Erdrich

You really need to approach each book as if you have been a failure. . . . If you start to believe your flap-copy, you're finished as a writer.

Louise Erdrich

Quote Topics

Approach Been Believe Book Copy Each Failure Finished Need Really Start Writer Your

Quote Author

Louise Erdrich
American - Writer
Born: June 7, 1954

Start copying what you love. Copy copy copy copy. At the end of the copy you will find your self.

Yohji Yamamoto

Each book is a different staging post on the writer's journey, and each book stands by itself, regardless of the writer's relationship to it.

Jeanette Winterson

Read Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande. Then do what it says, including the tasks you think are impossible. You will particularly hate the advice to write first thing in the morning, but if you can manage it, it might well be the best thing you ever do for yourself. This book is about becoming a writer from the inside out. Many later advice manuals derive from it. You don't really need any others, though if you want to boost your confidence, "how to" books seldom do any harm. You can kick-start a whole book with some little writing exercise.

Hilary Mantel

When I was writing Shadow and Bone,' I really had no confidence as a writer. I had never finished a book before and I desperately wanted to finish a book for the first time.

Leigh Bardugo

As a writer, you write the book, you give it to your editor, it's copy edited, it's published, it's thrown out there, and then there's a response.

David Bergen

The only difference between a good writer who publishes a book and a good writer who doesn't is that the writer who publishes actually finished her book.

Hanya Yanagihara

To write that essential book, a great writer does not need to invent it but merely to translate it, since it already exists in each one of us. The duty and task of a writer are those of translator.

Marcel Proust

When we want a book exactly like the one we just finished reading, what we really want is to recreate that pleasurable experience--the headlong rush to the last page, the falling into a character's life, the deeper understanding we've gotten of a place or a time, or the feeling of reading words that are put together in a way that causes us to look at the world differently. We need to start thinking about what it is about a book that draws us in, rather than what the book is about.

Nancy Pearl

The depressed don't simply need to feel better. They need a Redeemer who says, "Take heart, my son, my daughter; what you really need has been supplied. Life no longer need be about your goodness, success, righteousness, or failure. I've given you something infinitely more valuable than good feelings: your sins are forgiven."

Elyse Fitzpatrick

People aren't afraid of failure, they just don't know how to succeed. We are each responsible for our own success (or failure). Winning at what you do is no exception. To ensure a win, you must take a proactive approach. Prevention of failure is an important part of that process.

Jeffrey Gitomer

Every time I start off a book or a story I feel like I'm developing a new style or approach for that individual story alone, and it sometimes feels as if readers are looking for the same style/approach from the same writer over and over again, which hasn't helped me in the publishing biz.

Scott Bradfield

Nothing, not love, not greed, not passion or hatred, is stronger than a writer's need to change another writer's copy.

Arthur Evans

A book is not only written - after it's finished it starts writing you, the writer. You become its notebook, its sheet of paper on which it forces you to think and rethink your original ideas, your topics, your research, actually everything.

Sasa Stanisic

When I was first offered the book deal, I was like, 'I am not a writer. I haven't practiced this.' My approach has been completely stream-of-consciousness, and then edit down, because that's been YouTube for me forever.

Tyler Oakley

After a while, you start to believe that your opinions are more valid than everyone else's. It can be hard to be humble about making really good music; you really believe that you're a savior to music. That's why bands don't like each other.