Don Roff Quotes & Sayings

You cannot write your character until you know how he or she thinks, until you know what their philosophy is in the world that they occupy. — Don Roff

We often wait for that knock of opportunity, though I've found it's better to just grab a chainsaw and cut open your own fucking door. — Don Roff

If you schlep a shit job everyday, keep and feed a little secret life
whether it's writing, art, running, music, your thoughts. It's yours. — Don Roff

A writer always writes. — Don Roff

The recipe for great art has always been misery and a good bowel movement. — Don Roff

Don't think about the writing process too much. Just do one thing: tell the motherfucking story. — Don Roff

It's my belief that people enter your life at exactly the right time. — Don Roff

Authors must spend months, years making fantasy believable in a single work while reality runs rampant and complete chaos elsewhere. — Don Roff

When you're writing what you love, it's the most fun you can have with your clothing still on, unless of course, you write naked. — Don Roff

Audiences will admire your character's strength but connect with them through their weakness. — Don Roff

When you print out your manuscript and read it, marking up with a pen, it sometimes feels like a criminal returning to the scene of a crime. — Don Roff

Always work with/surround yourself with people who help make you a better version of you. Kindly avoid those who don't. — Don Roff

I write fiction. It may have mystery, it may have horror, it may have fantasy, it may have love, but like life, it's all the same genre. — Don Roff

I've found the best way to revise your own work is to pretend that somebody else wrote it and then to rip the living shit out of it. — Don Roff

Keep being bold on the page, and in life, and people cannot ignore you forever. — Don Roff

If you don't love what you're writing, stop right now: it's not worth your time and certainly not the reader's. — Don Roff

A migraine is the cockblock of writing. — Don Roff

Mothman flew away from town, like a giant bat, and then disappeared from sight behind a thicket of skeletal autumn trees. — Don Roff

Nothing says work efficiency like panic mode. — Don Roff

Creativity and intelligence, rather than violence, are the best problem solvers. — Don Roff

Nothing's a better cure for writer's block than to eat ice cream right out of the carton. — Don Roff

Any conversation including the mention of Roald Dahl, Ray Bradbury, or Emily Dickinson is one worth getting into or at least eavesdropping. — Don Roff

If you focus on the humanity of your stories, your characters, then the horror will be stronger, scarier. Without the humanity, the horror becomes nothing more than a tawdry parlor trick. All flash and no magic, and worst of all, no heart. — Don Roff

It's hard to land a devastating jab/cross/hook/uppercut combo to your reader's imagination when you're telegraphing your punches. — Don Roff

Fear and self-doubt are the deadly enemies of creativity. Don't invite either into your mind. — Don Roff

Write for impact first, money second. If you do it the other way around, you'll end up with less of either. — Don Roff

Yeah, episodic doesn't work. Your coolest character needs something big and meaningful to do. Otherwise, well, it's just narrative shit. — Don Roff

Regarding the creative: never assume you're the master, only the student. Your audience will determine if you're masterful. — Don Roff

You can be a writer who doesn't read everyday. But you're not fooling anyone. It shows, rather embarrassingly, in your work. — Don Roff

I've found that busting your ass on a daily basis to make your art good, clear, and meaningful creates the most luck. — Don Roff

Write about the thing that scares you most or your most private confession and you'll never have a problem coming up with decent fiction. — Don Roff

There was talk of the Centaur being moved into the elephant cages to make room for a banjo-picking Minotaur. Surrendering his meager furnishings to a musical half man half bull was all bull. — Don Roff

I write every day whether somebody pays me or not. I write every day whether or not self-doubt is kicking my ass. It's what writers must do. — Don Roff

Writing a story, regardless of length, begins always with a single word. — Don Roff

Writing a first-draft battle scene is akin to real combat - chaos, confusion, and you must keep your cool as you fire word bullets downrange. — Don Roff

Even if you're in the thick of revising another work, write something new. Something small. It's important to keep telling yourself stories. — Don Roff

Kindness, motherfucker, kindness. — Don Roff

A day of bad writing is always better than a day of no writing. — Don Roff

Always mystify, torture, mislead, and surprise the audience as much as possible. — Don Roff

If you write a kid's book only for kids, then you have failed. — Don Roff

The best writers I've read possess oodles of self-doubt, yet claw their way up with each work and remain humble. Boastful ones, not so much. — Don Roff

Successful writing is a slow, daily, meticulous form of mental illness. — Don Roff

Writers often torture themselves trying to get the words right. Sometimes you must lower your expectations and just finish it. — Don Roff

When writing, I uncage KAT: Keep Adding Tension. Even if I don't know where the story's going, petting the KAT keeps it purring. — Don Roff

If you treat your characters like people, they'll reward you by being fully developed individuals. — Don Roff

I don't use big words to show off because it's ostentatious. — Don Roff

But people in a small town tend to do a lot of talking, even when they don't know what they're talking about. — Don Roff

Love it when a compelling new character kicks open your mental door, tracks mud across your brain, and props their feet up on your cerebrum. — Don Roff

There is no right or wrong way to write a novel. Each journey is different for every individual work and for every writer. The first error is never to begin; the second is never to finish. — Don Roff