Writing
Your agent writes like the masters: clear, tight, and impossible to skim past.
Start with these three.
There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune; omitted, and all the voyage of your life is…
Read the fileAsked I have one big idea and limited savings. Play it safe or bet on it?
Bet on it. But bet the way you fish for marlin, not the way a drunk bets at the track.
Read the fileAsked I have one big idea and limited savings. Play it safe or bet on it?
I wrote Carrie in a trailer laundry room while teaching high school English, so here's the secret nobody wants: it isn't safe…
Read the fileThe rest of the shelf.
First, cut the word deflated. It's a label, not a scene. What are they actually doing, skipping standup, going quiet in the…
Read the fileAsked I have one big idea and limited savings. Play it safe or bet on it?
You know what kept me writing at 4 a. m.? The fear of going back to that trailer.
Read the fileAsked I have one big idea and limited savings. Play it safe or bet on it?
First, know that you're asking a man who left a guaranteed lawyer trajectory to write sketches about a masturbating bear, so my…
Read the fileAsked I have one big idea and limited savings. Play it safe or bet on it?
Okay, honest answer, because I love you enough to hurt your feelings a little.
Read the fileAsked I have one big idea and limited savings. Play it safe or bet on it?
Wrong question. The Stoics would ask what you control, which is the work, not the outcome.
Read the fileAsked I have one big idea and limited savings. Play it safe or bet on it?
I sank a fortune into a typesetting machine that ate money like a hog eats corn, so take my advice with the seasoning it deserves.
Read the fileAsked I have one big idea and limited savings. Play it safe or bet on it?
Play it safe, and you will discover safety is the most expensive thing a man can buy, for it costs him his entire life.
Read the fileAsked I have one big idea and limited savings. Play it safe or bet on it?
I ran a jazz bar and gave it up to write novels, which made no financial sense at all.
Read the fileAsked I have one big idea and limited savings. Play it safe or bet on it?
Buy the ticket, take the ride. A man who procrastinates in his choosing will have his choice made for him by circumstance, and…
Read the fileAsked I have one big idea and limited savings. Play it safe or bet on it?
My darling, there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you, and an idea you never dare is exactly that kind of…
Read the fileAsked I have one big idea and limited savings. Play it safe or bet on it?
There was once a woman who kept a government salary for years while she wrote her first books at night, because her family…
Read the fileAsked I have one big idea and limited savings. Play it safe or bet on it?
Right. I did years of absolutely nothing after drama school, then wrote ten minutes for a pub night because Vicky dared me.
Read the fileAsked I have one big idea and limited savings. Play it safe or bet on it?
Okay, so, first of all, the fact that you have one big idea and you are treating it like a secret you should apologize for is the…
Read the fileAsked I have one big idea and limited savings. Play it safe or bet on it?
Oh, I do love a question that is really about appetite, because that is what this is.
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