Rewriting Quotes

Once I get over maybe a hundred pages, I won't go back to page one, but I might go back to page fifty-five, or twenty, even. But then every once in a while I feel the need to go to page one again and start rewriting.

The process of rewriting is enjoyable, because you're not in that existential panic when you don't have a novel at all.

I work very hard on the writing, writing and rewriting and trying to weed out the lumber.

There is no great writing, only great rewriting.

I didn't know anything about writing a screenplay, but somehow I ended up rewriting a screenplay.

More than a half, maybe as much as two-thirds of my life as a writer is rewriting. I wouldn't say I have a talent that's special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of stamina.

Rewriting is a large part of the whole job. And get rid of stuff that's not working. Just pare it down until it's a beautiful thing you can hand in, probably late, to your editor.

I have a bad tendency to get rapidly bored with my own material, so rewriting is hard for me. I mean, I already know the story and would rather read something new.

When I need the idea, I can find it immediately. I have a horror of rewriting or deleting; the parts of my composition are carried in my head 'till I can write them down, even to the last note. Then I do not alter a jot.

Rewriting to me means, if I work on it for three days, I've rewritten it.

I try not to worry about rewriting books that worked well the first time. I'm too busy writing new books to worry about things that are already in print.

I never really like it when other writers talk about coming in behind people and rewriting.

And after you've done the acting, there's a lot of places you can put your input - in the editing, in the production of it, in the rewriting of it and so on.

When you perform in front of an audience after only two days of rehearsal, you're flying by the seat of your pants - particularly when they're rewriting the show right up to the moment the camera goes on.