Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.

~ Stephen King

Stephen King Darlings Deleting Editing Kill Revising Writing

Writers often torture themselves trying to get the words right. Sometimes you must lower your expectations and just finish it.

~ Don Roff

Don Roff Expectations Finishing Revising Tips Tips On Writing Torture Words Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Process

Even if you're in the thick of revising another work, write something new. Something small. It's important to keep telling yourself stories.

~ Don Roff

Don Roff Inspiration Revising Stories Telling Stories Tips For Writers Writing

When you print out your manuscript and read it, marking up with a pen, it sometimes feels like a criminal returning to the scene of a crime.

~ Don Roff

Don Roff Crime Manuscript Print Revising Revision

Writing a first draft is like groping one's way into a dark room, or overhearing a faint conversation, or telling a joke whose punchline you've forgotten. As someone said, one writes mainly to rewrite, for rewriting and revising are how one's mind comes to inhabit the material fully.

~ Ted Solotaroff

Ted Solotaroff Humor Revising Rewrite Rewriting Write Writing