Robert B. Parker
Robert B. Parker
Robert Brown Parkerwas an American crime writer. His most famous works were the 40 novels written about the private detective Spenser. ABC television network developed the television series Spenser: For Hire based on the character in the mid-1980s; a series of TV movies based on the character were also produced. His works incorporate encyclopedic knowledge of the Boston metropolitan area. The Spenser novels have been cited by critics and bestselling authors such as Robert Crais, Harlan Coben and Dennis Lehane...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth17 September 1932
CountryUnited States of America
I have reached the point where I know that as long as I sit down to write, the ideas will come. What they will be, I don't know.
This is not a screenplay. I don't do twenty drafts. I'm not going to show this to you until it's published or accepted for publication. You can make whatever suggestions you want, but I probably will ignore them entirely.
I really don't know what I am going to do in terms of what a book is going to be about until I actually start writing it!
I write five pages a day. If you would read five pages a day, we'd stay right even.
I needed to find my way to write. I need about six hours of uninterrupted time in order to produce about two hours of writing, and when I accepted that and found the way to do it, then I was able to write.
If you want to write, write it. That's the first rule. And send it in, and send it in to someone who can publish it or get it published. Don't send it to me. Don't show it to your spouse, or your significant other, or your parents, or somebody. They're not going to publish it.
Sure, I have advice for people starting to write. Don't. I don't need the competition.
Send it to someone who can publish it. And if they won't publish it, send it to someone else who can publish it! And keep sending it! Of course, if no one will publish it, at that point you might want to think about doing something other than writing.
It was not just that Ross Macdonald taught us how to write; he did something much more, he taught us how to read, and how to think about life, and maybe, in some small, but mattering way, how to live.
Would you care to publish this? Sincerely, Robert B. Parker.
With so much at stake maybe I'll just leave now.
My older son who is, I think, here tonight, is forty-one years old. Which is odd because so am I.
I didn't have to say it. I just had to write it. It was painful enough.
I think finally good writing gets out there, and people like it, and bad writing doesn't. Well, no. Bad writing does get out there 'cause some people like it.