Terry Brooks
Terry Brooks
Terence Dean "Terry" Brooksis an American writer of fantasy fiction. He writes mainly epic fantasy, and has also written two movie novelizations. He has written 23 New York Times bestsellers during his writing career, and has over 21 million copies of his books in print. He is one of the biggest-selling living fantasy writers...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth8 January 1944
CitySterling, IL
CountryUnited States of America
If you don't think there is magic in writing, you probably won't write anything magical.
...[Y]ou have an inner strength that makes it possible for you to do things other people couldn't even begin to think of doing.
Even after Sword was published, I was still only thinking about the next book, Elfstones.
You spend so much time wondering who you are, don't you think? You flounder about, searching for your identity, when most of the time it is plain as the nose on your face. You struggle with questions of purpose and need, and forget that the answers are found mostly inside yourselves.
Well, I think that as a country, we've drifted away from appreciating the importance of imagination.
I think I make better use of language and imagery than when I started out.
I would also argue that there is a good chance that an outline will help you stave off any onslaught of writer's block. Let me advise you right up front that I am not a big believer in writer's block. I think writer's block is God's way of telling you one of two things - that you failed to think your material through sufficiently before you started writing, or that you need a day or two off with your family and friends.
Fiction writing is a twenty-four-hou r-a-day occupation. You never leave your work behind. It is always with you, and to some extent, you are always thinking about it. You don't take your work home; your work never leaves home. It lives inside you. It resides and grows and comes alive in your mind.
I am incomplete without my work. I am so closely bound to it, so much identified by it, that without it I think I would crumble into dust and drift away.
This is for writers yet to be published who think the uphill climb will never end. Keep believing. This is also for published writers grown jaded by the process. Remember how lucky you are.
We'll be able to do something with these instead of grind 'em up.
On the other hand, I still approach each book with the same basic plan in mind - to put some people under severe stress and see how they hold up.
One summer we played for a week at being Knights of the Round Table, using broom handles as swords and lances and metal garbage can lids as shields.
I had wanted to do a dark fantasy set in the present in our own world for some time, but I didn't have what I felt was the right vehicle.