Jim C. Hines

Can we all pause a moment to appreciate the artistry of that sentence? "Sitting casually on the floor, a guard sat..." That's freaking art right there! Someone nominate this thing for the Hugo Award already!

Every libromancer had a first book. Etched more sharply into my memory than my first kiss, this book had been my magical awakening.

As was often the case, Magic just chuckled and kicked physics in the balls, leaving it groaning and wondering what just happened.

I had said before that all stories were magic. It had never occurred to me that all magic was stories.

The sonic screwdriver from Doctor Who might have worked, having been canonically established as being ineffective on wood, but nobody had ever figured out how to use the controls on the blasted thing.

Trust is a choice. Actually, trust is more of a desperate, hopeful guess based on limited information.

I like big books and I cannot lie.You other readers can__ denyThat when a kid walks in with The Name of the WindLike a hardbound brick of win.Story bling.Wanna swipe that thingCause you see that boy is speedingRight through the book he__ reading.I__ hooked and I can__ stop pleading.Wanna curl up with that for ages,All thousand pages.Reviewers tried to warn me.But with that plot you hookedMe like Bradley.Ooh, crack that fat spine.You know I wanna make you mine.This book is stella __ause it ain__ some quick novella.

A zombie amusement park sounds like fun, but the health code violations alone are enough to turn your stomach.

Your religious beliefs are your business. They are not and should not be the basis for law. If you use them as justification to discriminate against others, don__ be upset when others decide you__e an asshole."]

...bookstores, libraries... they're the closest thing I have to a church.

But 'I worked hard on this' doesn__ exempt you from criticism. Those harsh reviews aren__ about anyone being out to get me. It__ not an Authors vs. Reviewers thing. It__ people taking the time to express their opinions because they care about this s

Some people would say it's a bad idea to bring a fire-spider into a public library. Those people would probably be right, but it was better than leaving him alone in the house for nine hours straight. The one time I tried, Smudge had expressed his displeasure by burning through the screen that covered his tank, burrowing into my laundry basket, and setting two weeks' worth of clothes ablaze.

I__e said for years _ ever since I figured out how to write Goblin Hero _ that it__ important to give yourself permission to write crap. Perfection is the destroyer of art. It__ paralyzing. Art, whether it__ writing or painting or anything else, requires risk. And risk means you__e going to make mistakes. Sometimes you__e going to fail.

On a related note, I think for many of us, the first step in becoming a good writer is to write crap. In all seriousness, none of us are born knowing how to write. Almost all of us will produce a lot of really lousy stories before we start to get good. (Not all of us will choose to publish those lousy stories, but that's a whole separate discussion...)