Literary Birthday – 19 July – Garth Nix

Happy Birthday, Garth Nix, born on 19 July 1963.

Garth Nix Quotes On Writing

1. You can’t write if you don’t read.
2. Just write one chapter at a time and one day you’ll be surprised by your own finished novel.
3. Writing anything is better than not writing something perfect.
4. A goatee and a garret are all very well, but you have to actually write to be a writer.
5. I write chapter outlines. Writing a chapter outline is a great discipline for thinking out the story and it also provides a road map or central skeleton you can come back to if you get lost. I often write the prologue or initial chapter first to get the impetus for the story going and then write the outline.
6. I don’t believe authors need to keep any specific values or ideas in mind while they are writing for children, but I do think authors need to be aware of their audience, and of the effect their work may have.
7. If you like what you are writing, just write. Try to keep going before you stop to take a break. Keep going back before too much time has passed. And just stay with it.
8. Read a lot, and read widely (not just in one genre or area). Write as often as you can, even if it’s only a few paragraphs at a time. Submit a lot, even if you only get rejections (all writers get rejections). Most of all, don’t give up.
9. Most of my books seem to stem from a single image or thought that lodges in my brain and slowly grows into something that needs to be expressed. That thought may be a ‘what if?’ or perhaps just an image. Typically I seem to think about a book for a year or so before I actually start writing.
10. Never believe the first twenty publishers who reject your work. For the twenty-first, submit something new.

If you want to know more about how Garth Nix creates a book, click HERE

Garth Nix is an Australian author of young adult fantasy novels, most notably the Old Kingdom series, The Seventh Tower series, and The Keys to the Kingdom series. More than seven million copies of his books have been sold around the world. He is also the author of more than sixty published short stories, some of them collected in Across the Wall and To Hold The Bridge. His most recent books are Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz: Stories of the Witch Knight and the Puppet Sorcerer, which collects all nine stories of the godslaying duo; and the children’s novel We Do Not Welcome Our Ten-Year-Old Overlord. In 2025, he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for ‘services to literature’. Follow him on Bluesky and Facebook.

Source for Image: GarthNix.com

by Amanda Patterson
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