10 Quotes on writing by Bertrice Smalls

smackit (53)in #quotes • 7 years ago

1. “Whether you like or dislike a book is a personal taste.
I love the reviews that are favorable, and am grateful
to those reviewers. Bad reviews are as I've said. The reviewer's personal taste. You can't expect everyone
to like everything you do nor can you take it personally
if they don't.”

2. “I was "born" a writer.”

3. “I think what makes a good novel in any genre is good writing, a story that keeps you turning the pages, and sympathetic characters that you can root for, or hate”

4. “My only advice to aspiring writers is to believe in your work, but be willing to accept criticism, and act on it if the criticism is valid. If it isn’t just keep going straight ahead. There is no magic formula I regret to say.”

5. “I’ve never denied my genre. Those who bleat about real literature don’t get it. These days literature is divided into 2 catagories. Fiction and non-fiction. And fiction is divided into 2 sections. Literary fiction which deals with serious or scholarly subject matter, and popular commercial fiction such as mystery, romance, thrillers, etc.”

6. “I work 6 days a week from about 9:30 a.m. in the morning until about 7 p.m. in the evening with a break for dinner about 2 p.m. I work about 50 weeks out of a year. I’ve been fortunate in that I write steadily with some days slower than others, and other days so fast I can barely keep up. 3 pages a day, 50 weeks a year, will give you 936 written pages, enough for 2 or 3 novels.”

7. “With fantasy you can let your imagination run wild because you don't have to follow a specific timeline. You make it up as you go along. You world built which is a great deal of fun.”

8. “What does romance mean to me? That's a difficult question. I think it means different things to different people. For me its loyalty, passion, a willingness to compromise, teamwork, and not necessarily in that order. Romance and love go hand in hand. It's like the wind. Hard to catch.”

9. “Yes, I've traveled over a lot of the world in my single youth. You can research anything with a book. I know a lot of people like the Internet, but I need a book in my hand, open on my desk. I have books on everything: the landscape, the weather, plus the usual clothing, food, manners, religion, etc. Whatever I need to set the picture formy readers realistically. I never stop reading.”

10. “I work in my own office. I have a large library to fact check. I like quiet. And I don’t connect my PC to the internet. I have a separate computer for everything else. Too many writers spend too much time on the internet.”

Bertrice Small

Bertrice Small was born December 9, 1937, Manhattan, New York, NY, and died February 24, 2015, Southold, NY. Bertrice Small was an American Author, known for her historical and erotic romance novels. She published 56 novels, and was a member of The Authors Guild, Romance Writers of America, PAN, and PASIC.