Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Quoting a Writer

Benjamin Franklin, 1767, by David Martin

The hardest thing about writing fiction is coming up with a witty quote for which you'll later become famous.--Melanie Sherman

Okay, so I admit that might not make me famous. I've been worried about this for about a month. Were I to obtain a spectacular agent (and, of course, any agent who offered representation would be spectacular--just saying) and the agent were to sell the book to a brilliant publishing house, naturally there'd be calls from Oprah and The Today Show, the local 5 PM news, and my parents. They would all want an interview and they would all expect a quote. Authors always seem to have them.

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.--Mark Twain

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.--Ben Franklin

All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Is that a bulletproof vest? See, now that's so insulting. That's like saying I'm not smart enough to shoot you in the head." --Janet Evanovich (Seven Up)

At first I thought writing the book would be difficult. That wasn't nearly as hard as rewriting it. Six times. But even that wasn't as bad as the query letter. I thought that was the worst of all, but I was wrong. Coming up with an amusing, charismatic quote is like a senior citizen expecting to still have a full head of hair after pulling out the gray ones.

You don't suppose I'm merely procrastinating on my revisions, do you?

3 comments:

  1. Ummm well I got nada! Can that be my quote? Sad I know.

    ReplyDelete
  2. If, at first, you don't succeed, blame someone else - Catherine Miller ( I see it all around me on a daily basis...)

    Never trust men in white shoes - Catherine Miller

    That's all I got.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jars,

    You see? It is dang hard to come up with a quote. Well a good quote. Well, a memorable quote.

    Catherine,

    What can I say. You NEED to write. You've already got the quotes. The rest is a piece of cake.

    ReplyDelete

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