From: lithub.com/i-talked-to-150-writers-and-heres-the-best-advice-they-had I once heard John Irving give a lecture on his process at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, an in-depth account of the way his novels come to be. He kicked it off by writing a single sentence on the chalkboard—the last line of Last Night in Twisted River. All his books begin with the ending, Irving explained, a capstone he works and reworks until it’s ready. From there, he’ll generate a detailed… Read More

From: https://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/daniel-jose-older My favorite advice of all time for writing (and life) comes from a poem by Antonio Machado: “Caminante no hay camino / se hace camino al andar.” It means, “Walker, there is no path / the path is made by walking.” This is a perfectly concise way of saying: Kill your heroes, machete chop the barriers you’ve created in your mind, be brave and ridiculous and absolutely you in your journey… Read More

From: https://nanowrimo.org/pep-talks/roxane-gay Before I wrote my first novel, An Untamed State, I wondered if writing a novel was something I could do. The sheer scope of the task overwhelmed me. I started reading various books and visiting writing forums online trying to find advice about writing a novel. I learned about storyboarding methods and special software and how some writers create extensively detailed profiles for each character. I downloaded Scrivener and tried to… Read More