“Writing a first draft and reminding myself that I'm simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.”

“I'm writing a first draft and reminding myself that I'm simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.”

“No thinking - that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is... to write, not to think!”

“Children make prayers so thoughtlessly, building them up like sand castles—and they are always surprised when suddenly the castle becomes real, and the iron gate grinds shut.”

“It is better to write a bad first draft than no first draft at all.”

“It can take years. With the first draft, I just write everything. With the second draft, it becomes so depressing for me, because I realize that I was fooled into thinking I’d written the story. I hadn’t—I had just typed for a long time. So then I have to carve out a story from the 25 or so pages. It’s in there somewhere—but I have to find it. I’ll then write a third, fourth, and fifth draft, and so on.”