I like playing around with the words; I love it when I feel like I've picked the exact right word to describe whatever it is I'm trying to describe.
From Margaret Haddix
Sometimes I can spend as long revising a manuscript as I spent writing it in the first place.
It's just so much fun to make up characters, situations, and everything else about a story. I have so much freedom and flexibility to do whatever I want.
I was lucky enough not to face any required summer reading lists until I went to college. So I still think of summer as the best time to read for fun.
I loved to read when I was a kid, and as soon as I realized that an actual person got to make up the books I loved so much, I decided that that was the job for me.
I think I learned a lot from reading in general - even from reading badly written books.
There's something about each of my books that I'm really proud of, and there's something about each of my books that I cringe over.
Generally I finish a first draft in 2-6 months, then I set it aside for a while so that when I come back to it I can read it with fresh eyes and figure out how to improve it.
After I've sent my revised draft to my agent and editor, they suggest more improvement sand again, this revision phase can take anywhere from a few hours to a few months.
I started trying to write when I was in second or third grade.
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