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It's never perfect when I write it down the first time, or the second time, or the fifth time. But it always gets better as I go over it and over it.

Jane Yolen

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Jane Yolen
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: February 11
Editor
Novelist
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
New York City
New York
Jane Hyatt Yolen
Jane Hyatt Yolen Stemple
Jane H. Yolen Stemple
First
Writing
Fifth
Always
Gets
Never
Second
Time
Perfect
Write
Better
Firsts

More quotes by Jane Yolen

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Sometimes living takes more courage than dying.
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Exercise the writing muscle every day.
Jane Yolen
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A book is a wonderful present. Though it may grow worn, it will never grow old.
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Take a step, breathe in the world, give it out again in story, poem, song, art.
Jane Yolen
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Love the writing, love the writing, love the writing... the rest will follow.
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Stories, he'd said, his voice low and almost husky, we are made up of stories. And even the one's that seem the most like lies can be our deepest hidden truths.
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Ideas are the cheapest part of the writing. They are free. The hard part is what you do with ideas you've gathered.
Jane Yolen
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A shadowless man is a monster, a devil, a thing of evil. A man without a shadow is soulless. A shadow without a man is a pitiable shred. Yet together, light and dark, they make a whole.
Jane Yolen
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The main plot line is simple: Getting your character to the foot of the tree, getting him up the tree, and then figuring out how to get him down again.
Jane Yolen
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Intuition works best when you remember that “tuition” is part of it. You need to have paid ahead of time (ie done your prep work) so as to prepare the ground for intuition.
Jane Yolen
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If you love a waist, you waste a love.
Jane Yolen
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Fiction cannot recite the numbing numbers, but it can be that witness, that memory. A storyteller can attempt to tell the human tale, can make a galaxy out of the chaos, can point to the fact that some people survived even as most people died. And can remind us that the swallows still sing around the smokestacks.
Jane Yolen
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Well,' the Goddess said, 'your heart didn't heal straight the last time it broke. So we'll break it again and reset it so it heals straight this time.
Jane Yolen
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Write, write, and write some more. Think of writing as a muscle that needs lots of exercise.
Jane Yolen
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Readers re-create any story to suit their own needs. They re-clothe the story in their own shirts. Put simply: just as we write the story we need to write, they read the story they need to read.
Jane Yolen
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Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.
Jane Yolen
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You write to be read. That is the bottom line.
Jane Yolen
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What makes a good book? Scholars and critics have been debating that question for decades. I like books that touch my head and my heart at the same time.
Jane Yolen
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Touch magic. Pass it on.
Jane Yolen
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If you want to write, you write. Talent is simply not enough.
Jane Yolen