Jennifer Stevenson > Jennifer's Quotes

“I can fix a bad page. I can't fix a blank page.”
― Nora Roberts

“My rule is never save bits. They get in the way, and you don't think of anything new. Put 'em in. Make a big mess.”
― Gene Wolfe

“Part of being a writer is defending your vision and not caving in to outside pressures.”
― Jennifer Crusie

“In the middle of this poor life, we are surrounded by mystery, and the pity of it is that we would rather just be poor. No real tolerance for mystery at all.”
― Jennifer Stevenson, Trash, Sex, Magic

“Packard rolled his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. "I ast you not to start a riot with my boys and now I hear you kicked one of my stagehands in the nuts. You got anything to say about that?"
Daisy said, "Never happened.”
― Jennifer Stevenson, Fools Paradise

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
― Ira Glass