Cross-pollination and "contamination" is really important to the health of fiction, and sometimes it's a literal conversation, too, in that writers who… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
My parents read to me a lot as a kid, and I started writing very early, probably spurred on by Aesop's fables.… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
The one thing I always come back to as a writer, what I consider my bedrock, is a lot of charged images… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
Position yourself to succeed by doing the other things in your life that rejuvenate you. You can create little islands of time… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
If I wasn't a writer, I don't know what I'd be. Probably a marine biologist or something. — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
A dream inspiring a story is different than placing a description of a dream in a story. When you describe a character's… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
Trust your imagination. Don't be afraid to fail. Write. Revise. Revise. Revise. — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
Imbuing fiction with a life that extends beyond the last word is in some ways the goal: the ending that goes beyond… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
The best visual book I can think of is Lynda Barry's What It Is, but although I refer to it all the… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
“Whenever I write first drafts, I like to maximize the possibility of f-ups, mistakes, mis-written words, digressions, crazy changes in tone, etc.… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
I find myself in this bizarre position in which everything I write and talk about is pretty much about this issue, the… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
I believe the best creative writing lessons live in the specifics. — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
One of the most important things as a writing instructor is to provide a lot of different entry points to subjects. To… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
It is the nature of the writer to question the validity of his world and yet rely on his senses to describe… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
I've always wrestled with the difference between plot and structure, and after re-reading a lot of writing books I realized I wasn't… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
I have always tended toward a lush prose style, but I take care to modulate it from story to story and to… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
One thing about beginning writers is that they don't really always know their own strengths and weaknesses - you might think you're… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
My best time to write is right after coffee and breakfast - four eggs because, full disclosure: I'm really a komodo dragon… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
Angela Carter's fiction blew me away and really instilled a passion for writing, bolstered by Vladimir Nabokov. But in general, I can't… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
“Ten years ago, we would have been writing perfect stories, but people's attention spans have become more limited in these, the last… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
The music I listen to while writing is really scene-specific. It's just a great motivator, a way to put myself in the… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
I have to have music as a soundtrack to writing fiction. I listen to it at other times, too, but it helps… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
“Perhaps only I could truly make Wick a person, by forgiving him, and if I forgave him, if I showed I forgave him, then… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
“I knew these elements were intended for me and me alone. There were no endearments, but I understood in part because of this restraint.… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
“What if an infection was a message, a brightness a kind of symphony? As a defense? An odd form of communication? If so, the… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
That's how the madness of the world tries to colonize you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality. — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
What I envy about musicians is, they have this more direct relationship with the audience. They don't have to go through words. Sure, the… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
“In college, what had always stuck with him in Astronomy 101 was that the first astronomers to think of points of light not as… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
“But I was not a domesticated animals...The dirt and grit of a city, the unending wakefulness of it, the crowdedness, the constant light obscuring… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
Dreams, though, are just one kind of inspiration - no more or less special than something in a newspaper article or from the world… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
“All of the things that wore you down, even as that was balanced by the electric feeling of being on the side of a… — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
There simply aren't enough constitutional safeguards in place to protect against a rogue president. — Jeff Vandermeer Copy Share Image
There are some beautiful creatures in the ocean that seem very alien at the same time. — Jeff Vandermeer Copy Share Image
Even a dream as inspiration doesn't mean anything unless you then find that it's sparked an actual story with a plot. — Jeff VanderMeer Copy Share Image
