Questions Writers Ask: Wise, Whimsical, and Witty Answers from the Pros

For the first time, you’ll find quotations about writing organized by and keyed to real questions writers and authors ask…from “How do I get started?” to “Why do writers write, anyway?” to “What do I do about writer’s block” to “Where do you get your ideas” and 16 more. Authors’ voices are heard here that appear in no other collection of writing quotes—lots of women, many recent writers—nearly 6,000 quotations. They offer at times whimsical, clever, witty, at times serious, and helpful insights into the writing game collected and organized by someone who has been in this game for three decades—writing, editing, publishing, consulting.
Nearly 6,000 quotations organized in 20 topic areas by questions real writers ask…answered by real writers.
For the first time in a collection of this nature, you’ll actually find women included.
Quotations are organized in a conversational manner as if you’ve gathered the writers in a room and they are responding to one another…and you’re a mouse in the corner.

Chapter titles:

How do I get started?

What do I do about writer's block?

Why do writers write, anyway?

How should I create and handle my characters?

What can you tell me about plots and settings?

Where do you get your ideas?

What can you tell me about writing a novel?

What makes for a good short story?

How do you handle criticism?

Writing is just telling a story--right?

Is rewriting as difficult as it sounds?

What do I need to know about research?

How do I go about writing plays?

Can I write poetry?

How do I go about writing comedy and satire?

What should I know about editors and publishers?

What can you tell me about writing in different genres?

Do you have a writing method?

What should I know abut personal writing--journals, diaries, and memoirs?

What do I need to know about writing for children and adolescents?

Here is part of one of the six 5-star reviews on Amazon written by John Caruso:

"The lingering question is how best to read a completely epigrammatic text? It can be rather like reading through the Psalms of the Bible, some verses are striking, while others don't especially move us. There is a certain amount of reinforcing repetition and it doesn't matter in which order you read the chapters. Yet, if you take a single chapter and read it through you will discern Speerstra's subversive humor. In fact she makes sure to capture writers not only at their wisest and wittiest, but also at their surliest. At one point, in the deliciously wicked chapter, "How do you handle criticism?", Mark Twain, with increasing savagery, keeps horning into the conversation of quotes like a man obsessed with the "merits" of Jane Austen. Even as you laugh, quotes like this one from Borges--"A writer should have another lifetime to see if he's appreciated"--bring home the sting of harsh criticism and indifference that is an unavoidable part of the writer's life. In this chapter alone, you can certainly find quotes that make you question both the writer's wisdom and the wisdom of being a writer. What I like most about Questions Writers Ask is the way some of our guides and their quotes act a little like unreliable narrators in fiction. Does being pithy and funny make what you say true? When there are contradictions between writers, who do you trust and who do you dismiss? A nobel prize winning novelist fueled by alcohol, or a children's author we've never heard of? Speerstra isn't interested in arbitrating. It is up to the reader. The kinds of writers and answers you are drawn to may say something about the kind of writer you want to be, or perhaps only about the skill of the epigramists themselves, perhaps least about their reliability as instructors in the writer's life. It reminds me of the old adage: Be careful what you ask for, you might get it." — John Caruso