Anne McCaffrey Writing Quotations

I have my good days and my bad days, but I don't have as much energy as I used to back when I was young and foolish and didn't count the cost - and it takes a lot - to write

That's what writing is all about, after all, making others see what you have put down on the page and believing that it does, or could, exist and you want to go there.

What I used to do between writing fits was feed my kids, ride my horse and go shopping for cat and dog food.

I did not have a chance to write novels until my youngest child started school fulltime

I would recommend the short story form, which is a lot harder to write since you have to be so careful with words, until there is plenty of time to doodle through a novel

I do outlines when I'm writing with someone, but they also need to have a certain amount of freedom

I have always used emotion as a writing tool. That goes back to me being on the stage

I also don't have organized religion on Pern. I figured - since there were four holy wars going on at the time of writing - that religion was one problem Pern didn't need.

James Blish told me I had the worst case of "said bookism" (that is, using every word except said to indicate dialogue). He told me to limit the verbs to said, replied, asked, and answered and only when absolutely necessary.

Tell a story! Don't try to impress your reader with style or vocabulary or neatly turned phrases. Tell the story first!

Tell the readers a story! Because without a story, you are merely using words to prove you can string them together in logical sentences.