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Delia Sherman once told me that you never learn to write a story. You only learn to write the story you are currently writing. You have to learn how to write the next story all over again. And she's absolutely right.

Theodora Goss

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Theodora Goss
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: September 30
Novelist
Writer
Buda Pest
Delia
Next
Sherman
Stories
Currently
Right
Absolutely
Writing
Told
Never
Story
Learn
Write

More quotes by Theodora Goss

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Nature inspires me continually. Today, I can look out my window and see the entire world covered with snow. It's like Narnia under the White Witch.
Theodora Goss
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Sometimes you have to follow your uncommon sense.
Theodora Goss
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Understanding what is going on in the world today inspires me in a negative sense because there's so much about it that I don't like - political stupidity, environmental degradation, etc. And that makes me want to change it, to make a difference in the world.
Theodora Goss
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I loved writing something people usually have - miscommunication, for example. Now that I've written a romance, I'm sure I'll write more: it's fascinating to put people together and see what happens, how they fall in love and what that means in their lives.
Theodora Goss
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Accept criticism. If you do not offer your work for criticism and accept that criticism, meaning give it serious thought and attention, then you will never improve.
Theodora Goss
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The book[ The Thorn and The Blossom] is a love story about two people, Brendan and Evelyn, who meet in a small town in Cornwall where Evelyn has gone on vacation and Brendan is working in his father's bookstore. The story is told from both perspectives, Brendan's and Evelyn's.
Theodora Goss
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If you believe you have a voice and something to say, chances are you do, and the world needs you to do whatever you're drawn to do. So you should do it.
Theodora Goss
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I put that part of myself into both Brendan and Evelyn [from The Thorn and the Blossom] - as well as some of my own anxieties about the academic life!
Theodora Goss
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I would tell myself to get more sleep! Believe it or not, I wrote the book while finishing my PhD in English literature. It was wonderful to get away from doing literary scholarship by writing this mythical love story. I think so much of my own love for books and scholarship comes through in The Thorn and the Blossom.
Theodora Goss
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Believe in the importance of your art.
Theodora Goss
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Now that The Thorn and the Blossom has come out and I'm done with my doctoral degree (yes, I'm finally Dr. Goss), I'm turning to longer projects.
Theodora Goss
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I've heard some readers saying they wished the story was longer, and I completely understand that desire - we all like to sink into a nice, long novel.
Theodora Goss
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Jorge Luis Borges wrote a poem when he was in his 80s about one day writing the book that would justify him. This was long after he had become one of the great masters, a writer everyone looks up to and reveres. As artists, I don't think we ever see ourselves as done. We always think we're at the beginning . . .
Theodora Goss
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That sort of effort has to come not only from the writer but also from a really innovative publisher like Quirk.
Theodora Goss
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It's very difficult to put in the work unless you believe that what you're doing is significant in some way.
Theodora Goss
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I co-edited an anthology called Interfictions with Delia Sherman and wrote a short scholarly book on three women poets called Voices from Fairyland: The Fantastical Poems of Mary Coleridge, Charlotte Mew, and Sylvia Townsend Warner. So I've been busy, but I haven't had time to write a novel.
Theodora Goss
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The appeal of writing a romance was that I'd never written one before the The Thorn and The Blossom.
Theodora Goss
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What writers do - everything comes from inside, from experiences of the world that we have digested. And then we turn it into silk, or stories.
Theodora Goss
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If you look at the natural world, really look at it, it's always magical.
Theodora Goss
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When we tell stories about things that are important - love, fear, beauty - we change the way people think about the world. Writers are, or should be, truth-tellers even when the stories themselves are fantasy.
Theodora Goss