Kami Garcia
At the beginning of a new project, often before I do any actual writing, I collect photos, quotes, song lyrics, and even objects that relate to the characters or the world I'm creating.
The beginning of a book is always the hardest part for me. I'm a Chapter 3 kind of writer, which means I naturally start at Chapter 3.
As much as I love to dive into the action early, I think the hero's journey is important - the idea that the reader needs to experience the protagonist's everyday life before you turn that world upside down.
I start with a beat sheet, which is more of an abbreviated outline. It hits all the major plot points. From there, I move to note cards. But the most important part of my process is my inspiration board.
I was a fine arts major in college, and a painter for many years. And I found that, like writing, art is very similar.
I had never been this mad at her before. It was one thing to be attacked by someone you hated, but this was something else. This was the kind of hurt that could only be inflicted by someone you loved, who you thought loved you. It was sort of like being stabbed from the inside out.Collection: Heartbreak
I'm just the librarian. I can only give you the books. I can't give you the answers.Collection: Book
We don't get to chose what is true. We only get to choose what we do about it.Collection: Truth
In Light there is Dark, and in Dark there is Light.Collection: Dark
You're incredibly, absolutely, extremely, supremely, unbelievably different.Collection: Different
The story you are afraid to write is usually the one you are meant to tell.Collection: Writing
In one moment I was feeling everything and I was feeling nothing.Collection: Feelings
I didn't want to choose one world. I wanted to be part of both. I didn't want to see only one side of the sky. I wanted to see it all.Collection: Sky
Blood of my heart, protection is thine. Life of my life, taking yours, taking mine Body of my body, marrow and mind Soul of my soul, to our spirit bind Blood of my heart, my tides, my moon Blood of my heart, my salvation, my doomCollection: Heart
I never loved you any more than I do, right this second. And I'll never love you any less than I do, right this second.Collection: I Love You
I loved her, atom by atom, one burning cell at a time.Collection: Cells
I'll love you until the day after forever.Collection: Love You
Maybe it needed to be broken. Sometimes things have to break before you can fix them.Collection: Broken
I really was alone, and the only thing worse than being alone was having everyone else see how lonely you wereCollection: Lonely
moments bleed together, no span to timeCollection: Together
Lena's hair was sticking out in about fifteen directions, and her eyes were all small and puffy from crying. So this was what girls looked like in the morning. I had never seen one, not up close.Collection: Girl
Who burns me and shocks me and shatters me with a single touch.Collection: Shock
The library was home away from home to my mom, and my family. We had spent every Sunday afternoon there since I was a little boy, wandering around the stacks, pulling out every book with a picture of a pirate ship, a knight, a soldier, or an astronaut. My mom used to say, "This is my church, Ethan. This is how we keep the Sabbath holy in our family.Collection: Mom
Jewelry, I'm telling you. It's a thing. And love. And maybe danger.Collection: And Love
I couldn't look at her. I'd been jealous and hurt, and I had dragged Liv into the middle of my own broken mess of a life. All because I thought Lena didn't love me anymore. But I was stupid, and I was wrong. Lena loved me so much, she was willing to risk everything to save me. I had given up on Lena, after she had refused to give up on me. I owed her my life. It was as simple as that.Collection: Hurt
The more I learned about the world I thought I knew and all the ones I didn't, the more everything threaded together, leading everywhere and nowhere at the same time.Collection: Together
There wasn't enough chocolate in the world to make this better.Collection: Chocolate
You're not the only one fallingCollection: Fall
I only assumed those dresses were costumes, based on the garish nature of the plumage.Collection: Dresses
She was my destination. I was always on the way to Lena, even when I wasn't. Even when she wasn't on her way to me.Collection: Way
The right thing and the easy thing are never the same.Collection: Life
I guess that’s the thing about a hero’s journey. You might not start out a hero, and you might not even come back that way. But you change, which is the same as everything changing. The journey changes you, whether or not you know it, and whether or not you want it to.Collection: Hero
the missing piece my breath my heart my memory me the other half the missing halfCollection: Memories
The ways I could hurt her and hurt myself. Those two things were intertwined somehow. It's hard to explain, but when you were as closed off as I was the past few months, opening felt as wrong as stripping naked in church.Collection: Hurt
Darkness, real darkness, was more than just a lack of light.Collection: Real
I suppose I am a snob. I loathe towns. I loathe townspeople. They have small minds and giant backsides. Which is to say, what they lack in interiors they make up in posteriors.Collection: Mind
These are the kinds of things a guy thinks about when he visits his own grave.Collection: Thinking
It almost felt like she was sucking it all out of me, like she sucked on that sticky red lollipop, the one she kept licking as she drove.Collection: Lollipop
You couldn't take two roads. And once you were on one, there was no going back.Collection: Two
I love her beyond the universe and back. I love her from this world to the next.Collection: World
Ethan: I love you, I whispered in her ear. She held my face in her hands and leaned back so she could look at me. Lena: I don't think I could ever love anything the way I love you.Collection: Love You
It smelled like aging wood and creosote, plastic book covers, and old paper. Old paper, which my mom used to say was the smell of time itself.Collection: Mom
I needed to touch her, like I needed to breathe.Collection: Breathe
Hey, Ethan." "Yeah?" "Remember the Twinkie on the bus? The one I gave you in second grade, the day we met?" "The one you found on the floor and gave me without telling me? Nice." He grinned and shot the ball. "It never really fell on the floor. I made that part up.Collection: Nice
Laws of physics laws of love of time and space and the (in)between place (in)between you and me and where we are lost and looking looking and lostCollection: Law
No, I'm too busy trying to deflect your Power of Stupidity. But I don't think I'm strong enough.Collection: Strong
Maybe there isn't a meaning to life. Maybe there's only a meaning to living.Collection: Meaning Life
Even lost in the darkness, my heart will find you.Collection: Heart
surrounded by strangers who love me (un)strangers made strange by painCollection: Pain
They're headed for some place called the Great Barrier." "A place that doesn't exist." Liv was shaking her head, checking the rotating dials on her wrist. Link pushed away his plate, still covered with food. "So let me get this straight. We're gonna go down into the Tunnels and find this moon outta time with Liv's fancy watch?" "Selenometer." Liv didn't look up from copying numbers from the dials into her red notebook.Collection: Notebook