I don't like to think in terms of writing ten or twelve pages a day. Usually I'm writing a scene, and it's always with the idea, "I wonder what is going to happen." Or sometimes I write about something that affected me emotionally the day before and that I don't want to lose. I'm very unorganized at first; but finally it comes into a structure where consciously I'm working on a novel per se.

Robert Cormier

Categorized in : Thinking Ideas Writing

I had my bully, and it was excruciating. Not only the bully, but the intimidation I felt.

Robert Cormier

intimidation bully felt

It's amazing that the heart makes no noise when it cracks.

Robert Cormier

cracks noise heart

The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon. You can always do it better, find the exact word, the apt phrase, the leaping simile.

Robert Cormier

brain writing beautiful

A novel must work as a story because no one's going to get to the other themes if you don't entertain the reader. But I like to have another layer of meaning, although you can read the book on one level and not bother with that other layer.

Robert Cormier

levels stories book

I'm always telling myself as I write that I'm not really writing a novel; I'm just going to fool around with a character or an idea.

Robert Cormier

writing character ideas

Everybody sins, Francis. The terrible thing is that we love our sins. We love the thing that makes us evil.

Robert Cormier

terrible sin evil

There are moments that stop the heart, that catch the breath, that halt the beat of blood in your veins, and you are suspended in time, held between life and death, and you wait for something to bring you back again.

Robert Cormier

life-and-death heart blood

The rewriting is always crucial to what I do; whenever I do a scene, I always tell myself that this isn't final and that I can do it again, better. The pacing is probably from experience. I've always liked gradual disclosure. I keep thinking of my rubber-band theory. You have a rubber band that you keep pulling and pulling and pulling, and just at the moment of snapping you release it and start another chapter and start pulling again.

Robert Cormier

finals band thinking

I have lived a thousand lives lost within the pages of a book.

Robert Cormier

pages lost book

Writing, even though it's hard work, is really a joy when you get these characters to come alive. It's hard to trace where they come from. I can't say that I am sitting here one night at nine o'clock and that a character occurs to me. The magic for me happens at the typewriter.

Robert Cormier

hard-work writing character

A man I know who writes and aspires to be a novelist does very little reading, and he's not that successful. But I think it's because he's like the kid who wants to be a ballplayer and never goes to the ballpark or tries to hit a ball. So I'd say reading is the most important thing that I do, besides the actual writing. I'm always asking as I read, "How did the writer do this? Why do I suddenly have tears in my eyes? Why am I crying?"

Robert Cormier

reading writing kids

And he did see--that life was rotten, that there were no heroes, really, and that you couldn't trust anybody, not even yourself.

Robert Cormier

rotten hero

A writer must take risks, defy the odds, be a bit obsessed and a little mad.

Robert Cormier

mad risk odds

They don't actually want you to do your own thing, not unless it's their thing too.

Robert Cormier

want

It would be the death of all creativity for me if I had to sit there and be concerned with the sensibilities of a fourteen-year-old kid. Some fourteen-year-olds would revel in the book, and some would be very sensitive to it, so you can't afford to worry about that. What I worry about is good taste and getting my message across by whatever means I can.

Robert Cormier

creativity mean book

There are no taboos. Every topic is open, however shocking. It is the way that the topics are handled that's important, and that applies whether it is a 15-year-old who is reading your book or someone who is 55.

Robert Cormier

reading book years

The possibility that hope comes out of hopelessness and that the opposite of things carry the seeds of birth - love out of hate, good out of evil. Didn't flowers grow out of dirt?

Robert Cormier

hate flower opposites

I don't mean to be insolent. I'm truthful. I tell the truth and the truth sometimes hurts. For instance, you have bad breath, Lieutenant. I can smell it from here. It must offend a lot of people. That's the truth. But how many people have told you that? Instead, they either lie or try to avoid your company.

Robert Cormier

hurt mean lying

Kids tell me all the time, "I don't know how you do it, but that's us in the book." That's the kind of response you want, and I can't sacrifice it for the sake of somebody worried about censorship. You have to find a way to be truthful and honest.

Robert Cormier

sacrifice kids book

You bring up your children to be self-reliant and independent and they double-cross you and become self-reliant and independent.

Robert Cormier

independent self children