Goodreads asked David Grant Urban:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

David Grant Urban Raymond Chandler had the best advice, I think, for aspiring writers: Find a scene in a novel you like, and re-write it. I did this. I re-wrote Chandler and Hemingway scene by scene. For example, I re-wrote the scene in THE BIG SLEEP where the private detective Marlowe first meets General Sternwood. I didn't crib, I wrote it without copying from the original, using my memory only. Then I compared how Chandler did it as compared to my effort. I looked at word count, the use of similes and metaphors, pacing, dialogue, and all the small details that make up a certain atmosphere. I learned to slow down and savor the moments. I kept doing this until I felt "comfortable among the masters." I don't pretend to have the genius of Chandler or Hemingway, but by re-writing all those scenes I began to see the workman-like qualities they put into their writing, and I learned much. Most of this re-writing I did in long hand. It seems to make a bigger impression if you actually write it out rather than type. Try writing out, "The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men." Your muscle memory retains that certain rhythm, I believe. Something impossible with mere repetitive tapping on a keyboard.

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