Literary Birthday – 16 May – Bruce Coville

Happy Birthday, Bruce Coville, born 16 May 1950.

Bruce Coville Quotes

1. My writing works best when I remember that bookish child who adored reading and gear the work toward him.
2. Every book is like starting over again. I’ve written books every way possible – from using tight outlines to writing from the seat of my pants. Both ways work.
3. Like most people, I was not able to start selling my stories right away. So I had many other jobs along the way to becoming a writer, including toy maker, gravedigger, cookware salesman, and assembly line worker.
4. Ideas are all around you – everything gives you ideas. But the real source is the part of your brain that dreams.
5. First, read a lot. Filling your brain with good stuff is an important part of the job.
6. Second, write a lot. Keep a journal—it’s one of the best tools a writer has. Also, write down ideas when they come to you. The human brain is cranky. If you want an idea, your mind will probably refuse to give it to you. But if you are doing something else, sometimes ideas just come floating by. The trick is to save ideas when they come to you. If you get a great idea today, it will probably be gone before you get around to writing about it—unless you write it down.
7. Third, and most important of all—never give up. You must believe in yourself, even when no one else does. People will think you are crazy. They will think you are conceited. You will get discouraged. You will think it is hopeless. You will think you are never going to get your work published. And if you give up, that will be true. You must believe in yourself, and Never Give Up.
8. Read your writing out loud. This will help you when you are revising.
9. Talent is only part of what it takes to be a writer. Luck and courage and mostly just plain old sticking to it are just as important.

Bruce Coville is an American author. He has written 101 books for children and young adults, including the international bestseller My Teacher Is an Alien, and the Unicorn Chronicles series.

Source for image

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bruce_Coville.jpg

Ryan Johnson (RL Johnson), CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Source for 5-9: Bruce Coville Tips

by Amanda Patterson

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