Don Roff Quotes

#1. There was talk of the Centaur being moved into the elephant cages to make room for a banjo-picking Minotaur. Surrendering his meager furnishings to a musical half man half bull was all bull.

Don Roff

#2. I write fiction. It may have mystery, it may have horror, it may have fantasy, it may have love, but like life, it's all the same genre.

Don Roff

#3. Creativity and intelligence, rather than violence, are the best problem solvers.

Don Roff

#4. Regarding the creative: never assume you're the master, only the student. Your audience will determine if you're masterful.

Don Roff

#5. Writing a story, regardless of length, begins always with a single word.

Don Roff

#6. A day of bad writing is always better than a day of no writing.

Don Roff

#7. It's hard to land a devastating jab/cross/hook/uppercut combo to your reader's imagination when you're telegraphing your punches.

Don Roff

#8. Write for impact first, money second. If you do it the other way around, you'll end up with less of either.

Don Roff

#9. Always mystify, torture, mislead, and surprise the audience as much as possible.

Don Roff

#10. When writing, I uncage KAT: Keep Adding Tension. Even if I don't know where the story's going, petting the KAT keeps it purring.

Don Roff

#11. Even if you're in the thick of revising another work, write something new. Something small. It's important to keep telling yourself stories.

Don Roff

#12. A writer always writes.

Don Roff

#13. You cannot write your character until you know how he or she thinks, until you know what their philosophy is in the world that they occupy.

Don Roff

#14. I've found that busting your ass on a daily basis to make your art good, clear, and meaningful creates the most luck.

Don Roff

#15. The recipe for great art has always been misery and a good bowel movement.

Don Roff

#16. Writers often torture themselves trying to get the words right. Sometimes you must lower your expectations and just finish it.

Don Roff

#17. If you don't love what you're writing, stop right now: it's not worth your time and certainly not the reader's.

Don Roff

#18. Keep being bold on the page, and in life, and people cannot ignore you forever.

Don Roff

#19. If you treat your characters like people, they'll reward you by being fully developed individuals.

Don Roff

#20. Any conversation including the mention of Roald Dahl, Ray Bradbury, or Emily Dickinson is one worth getting into or at least eavesdropping.

Don Roff

#21. If you write a kid's book only for kids, then you have failed.

Don Roff

#22. If you focus on the humanity of your stories, your characters, then the horror will be stronger, scarier. Without the humanity, the horror becomes nothing more than a tawdry parlor trick. All flash and no magic, and worst of all, no heart.

Don Roff

#23. A migraine is the cockblock of writing.

Don Roff

#24. Nothing's a better cure for writer's block than to eat ice cream right out of the carton.

Don Roff

#25. Audiences will admire your character's strength but connect with them through their weakness.

Don Roff

#26. Write about the thing that scares you most or your most private confession and you'll never have a problem coming up with decent fiction.

Don Roff

#27. Always work with/surround yourself with people who help make you a better version of you. Kindly avoid those who don't.

Don Roff

#28. Nothing says work efficiency like panic mode.

Don Roff

#29. When you print out your manuscript and read it, marking up with a pen, it sometimes feels like a criminal returning to the scene of a crime.

Don Roff

#30. Successful writing is a slow, daily, meticulous form of mental illness.

Don Roff

#31. There is no right or wrong way to write a novel. Each journey is different for every individual work and for every writer. The first error is never to begin; the second is never to finish.

Don Roff

#32. I've found the best way to revise your own work is to pretend that somebody else wrote it and then to rip the living shit out of it.

Don Roff

#33. Kindness, motherfucker, kindness.

Don Roff

#34. It's my belief that people enter your life at exactly the right time.

Don Roff

#35. I don't use big words to show off because it's ostentatious.

Don Roff

#36. You can be a writer who doesn't read everyday. But you're not fooling anyone. It shows, rather embarrassingly, in your work.

Don Roff

#37. When you're writing what you love, it's the most fun you can have with your clothing still on, unless of course, you write naked.

Don Roff

#38. I write every day whether somebody pays me or not. I write every day whether or not self-doubt is kicking my ass. It's what writers must do.

Don Roff

#39. The best writers I've read possess oodles of self-doubt, yet claw their way up with each work and remain humble. Boastful ones, not so much.

Don Roff

#40. Don't think about the writing process too much. Just do one thing: tell the motherfucking story.

Don Roff

#41. Writing a first-draft battle scene is akin to real combat - chaos, confusion, and you must keep your cool as you fire word bullets downrange.

Don Roff

#42. But people in a small town tend to do a lot of talking, even when they don't know what they're talking about.

Don Roff

#43. Fear and self-doubt are the deadly enemies of creativity. Don't invite either into your mind.

Don Roff

#44. Love it when a compelling new character kicks open your mental door, tracks mud across your brain, and props their feet up on your cerebrum.

Don Roff

#45. If you schlep a shit job everyday, keep and feed a little secret life
whether it's writing, art, running, music, your thoughts. It's yours.

Don Roff

#46. Mothman flew away from town, like a giant bat, and then disappeared from sight behind a thicket of skeletal autumn trees.

Don Roff

#47. Yeah, episodic doesn't work. Your coolest character needs something big and meaningful to do. Otherwise, well, it's just narrative shit.

Don Roff

#48. We often wait for that knock of opportunity, though I've found it's better to just grab a chainsaw and cut open your own fucking door.

Don Roff

#49. Authors must spend months, years making fantasy believable in a single work while reality runs rampant and complete chaos elsewhere.

Don Roff