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"When I decided to take writing seriously, I did a lot of reading and analyzing of the books I liked, and came up with what I thought were pretty sound plotting and structure basics."
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"Just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read. If one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Whatever you're ready for is ready for you."
Author Name
Personal Development
"A book is as dangerous as any journey you might take. The person who closes the back cover may not be the same one that opened the front one. Treat them with respect."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Back at the Chateau Windsor there was a rat-like scratching at the door of my room. Vinod, the youngest servant, came in with a soda water. He placed it next to the bag of toffees. Then he watched me read. I was used to being observed reading. Sometimes the room would fill like a railway station at rush hour and I would be expected to cure widespread boredom."
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Personal Development
"Someday I must read this scholar Everyone. He seems to have written so much--all of it wrong."
Author Name
Personal Development
"The true reader reads every work seriously in the sense that he reads it whole-heartedly, makes himself as receptive as he can. But for that very reason he cannot possibly read every work solemly or gravely. For he will read 'in the same spirit that the author writ.'... He will never commit the error of trying to munch whipped cream as if it were venison."
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Personal Development
"It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between."
Author Name
Personal Development
"Reading for enjoyment won't die altogether, but this Ereader device has the potential to repel those less imaginative from fiction. And that could have an undesirable domino effect."
Author Name
Personal Development
"She'd obviously read the book many times before, and so she read flawlessly and confidently, and I could hear her smile in the reading of it, and the sound of that smile made me think that maybe I would like novels better if Alaska Young read them to me."
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"I've devoted a lot of my time and effort during the past few years to developing my advertising copywriting business to the point of where I can support my family and don't have to depend on writing fiction for my income."
Business
"A couple of weeks after that, Zebra Books phoned with an offer, and I accepted."
Books
"For the novels I wrote before selling anything, I didn't outline much. I had a vague idea of the story."
Creativity
"When I was a teenager, I got into SF, quite heavily, and that too has had a major impact on my writing."
Writing
"So, I outlined a horror novel and started writing."
Horror
"Actually, the 14 novels were written over a period of just over 6 years."
Writing
"On the other hand, now that I'm not dependent on fiction for my income, I've been writing more short stories despite the fact that there's no real paying market for short horror other than Cemetery Dance."
Dance
"For each book, the time is also broken up."
Time
"The benefit of this kind of outlining is that you discover a story's flaws before you invest a lot of time writing the first draft, and it's almost impossible to get stuck at a difficult chapter, because you've already done the work to push through those kinds of blocks."
Time
"Even the contemporary horror authors who have seriously influenced me are a disparate bunch."
Horror
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