Literary Birthday – 22 April – Wendy Mass

Wendy Mass Quotes

1. The trick is that as long as you know who you are and what makes you happy, it doesn’t matter how others see you.
2. Read. Read everything you can, but especially read the type of material you like to write.
3. Take creative writing classes and share your work with your peers whenever possible–in school, summers, online, etc. It’s great practice. It really helped me to keep notebooks with ideas that I would add to whenever I thought of one, or learned something interesting, or overheard something. That way when I wanted to write a story, I didn’t have to face an empty page.
4. Ideas aren’t as hard to come by as you might think. I once heard the great Paula Danziger say that ideas come from only three places–Experience, Observation, and Imagination. And we all do those things every day.
5. A writer is someone who writes. Just by writing, you’re already there.
6. I’m going to tell you a secret. Our lives are shaped by the future, not by the past. Once you decide how you want your life to be, all you need to do is live into that future.
7. The sidelines may be safer but life is played on the field.
8. Writing was just a natural progression from reading for me. At some point as a kid I decided to try writing my own stories, and then just never stopped. Now I think it’s the readers who inspire me to keep writing. (The Book Nut)
9. Sometimes I have no idea how the books get written. Juggling family and writing and traveling for school visits is really hard. I recently started renting an office in town, and that has helped a lot. Just having someplace to go where I can focus (with no internet access or Dora the Explorer!), has made it easier to buckle down and focus. I also do a lot of “writing” in my head, so when I get to sit in front of the computer I’ve worked a lot of it out already. (The Book Nut)

Wendy Mass is an American author of young-adult novels and children’s books. Mass is the New York Times bestselling author of 31 novels, which have been translated into 32 languages and nominated for 92 state book awards. Her books include A Mango-Shaped Space and Every Soul a Star. Mass’s novel Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life was adapted into a feature film in 2011. She co-wrote Bob and The Lost Library with Rebecca Stead. Follow her on Instagram.

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by Amanda Patterson

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