So, while I gave up the notions of publishing at that time, I never stopped editing and refining that book. A few years later, in 1987, I thought I had it ready to go out again.

I loved to read and to write, but then something happened. As I made my way through school, I kept getting handed books to read that didn't excite me and didn't even remotely connect to the realities of my life.

I've always been a fighter. If you tell me I can't, I'll die trying to prove you wrong.

I do that mostly because I believe that the fantasy business is in terrible trouble right now, for several reasons, not the least of which being the almost Democrat vs. Republican mentality of readers on the Internet.

I didn't and don't go to Internet for any business purposes. The book sales for me by this point are way beyond any influence I might have, positively, or others might have, negatively.

Here's the thing, for me at least: this is a huge genre now. It wasn't always so. Not so many years ago, it wasn't so. There is a tremendous diversity in fantasy today.

It got so bad that by the time I was graduated, the only reading I did was in order to get the grade and the only writing I did was in order to get the grade.

I'm a working-class kid from a blue-collar New England family.

I loved the world of imagination.

I never intended to be a professional writer; as the story developed, the one thing I had in my hopes was that this would be something tangible to separate me from the nameless, numbered masses.

I thought I would set the world on fire when I got out of college. I had done quite well in a field that was growing. Unfortunately, we got hit with a recession in 1981.

Also, there are authors and publicists using the Internet to manipulate opinion, both positively for a work and negatively against the competition. I don't do this and can't stomach it, honestly.

I don't often know exactly what's coming next, and that makes it more fun. And you know, for me, this entire genre is all about that; it's all about having fun and getting away from the mundane world for just a little while.

Writing is an incredibly lonely job.

I'm trying to make all the characters change and grow, or regress.

So, while I gave up the notions of publishing at that time, I never stopped editing and refining that book. A few years later, in 1987, I thought I had it ready to go out again.

In the past, TSR and now Wizards of the Coast have asked me to do game stats for my characters, and I'm never comfortable doing that. It's all relative after all.

Writing a book for me, I expect, is very similar to the experience of reading the book for my readers.

Definitely they write themselves. It's an amazing experience. It's like the characters have come alive and are sitting on my shoulder talking to me, telling me their tales.

I don't know how many bestsellers I've got, or half the awards I've won, and I don't really care. I'm just having fun, doing something I love and getting paid for it. How cool is that?

I won't hold any illusions of changing the world or any such nonsense. But maybe, just maybe, I'm helping someone else change his or her life a little bit for the better, even if it just means giving someone a magical place in which to hide.

On a more practical level, anyone out there who wants to be a writer should clearly recognize that this is a brutal business, where even incredibly talented people sometimes never make a living. If you want to chase such a dream, please have a Plan B in place.

Things don't really impress me. Memories impress me. It's not the toys, it's the people.

This is my spiritual journey through life, my way of making sense of the world. I don't need permission from anyone or accolades from anyone; it is completely internal.

This little hobbit saves the world. The wizard kills the dragon and saves the town. So many people connect to that character; it doesn't matter if it's an elf or a hobbit or a dwarf. It doesn't matter. They're human in their heart and soul.

Whenever you're writing a book or creating a movie or a game, your first task is to get the reader/audience/player to suspend disbelief, to buy into the logic and boundaries of your world, even though those boundaries might include things like dragons and magic. To do that, you need long threads - of history and culture.

Writers always have confidence issues - it comes with the territory. We never know where we fit in, or what the actual value of our work might be. So we hit lulls, or slogs. Throw in the idea that many creative people are somewhat manic-depressive, and it can get pretty dark at times.

We need to be reminded sometimes that a sunrise last but a few minutes. But its beauty can burn in our hearts eternally.

If you have a song that you think sounds like another song you should contact the publishing company and say I have a song here, let's cut a deal that lets everyone walk away feeling good.

You think publishing is tough but the music world is ten times tougher.

To the extent that '60s guys own things, yes... but I don't have the publishing, just like most '60s guys, and that was an error, you know... part ownership in publishing was the kind of era that started a little bit later, when real businessmen started to manage artists.

I wrote and produced millions and millions of selling records, so my publishing company alone was worth millions of dollars. I didn't have to work anymore in life because when the rappers started sampling... I'm the most sampled artist in history.

One the other hand, the publishing trend is ghastly, isn't it? Two hundred and something distributors are now down to 10 or 12? And what's the recruiting drive?

I worked for a publishing company in Hollywood.

Publishing is a business. Writing may be art, but publishing, when all is said and done, comes down to dollars.

He was the editor of our paper. He created the publishing house in Hebrew. He was - I wouldn't say the "guru" - but really he was our teacher and a most respected man. I wrote for the paper of the youth movement.

Publishing your work is important. Even if you are giving a piece to some smaller publication for free, you will learn something about your writing. The editor will say something, friends will mention it. You will learn.

Because most writers have totally unrealistic concepts of how publishing works.

There are those who believe we have need of more literature, of a large international publishing house, of a great peace newspaper, or the like. I am rather skeptical about this idea.

Some of the biggest changes that have happened are behind the scenes, in the way we produce the magazine. E.g., much of our production has been brought in-house via desktop publishing.

While writing my first 90 books, I was magazine editor, publisher, book publisher, executive, etc., so I was established in publishing. three of my seven or so books were biographies of sports stars and really opened doors for me in that area.

To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author.

We're also far enough from the publishing power that we have no access to the politics of publishing, although there are interpersonal politics, of course.

What I did was, I went and collected every bit of information from Adventist publishing houses in the basic areas of doctrine covered in the book Questions on Doctrine.

Nothing like being visible, publishing one's work, and speaking openly about one's life, to disabuse the world of the illusion of one's perfection and purity.

Australian SF book publishing has undergone a boom recently, and sometimes it's easier for new writers to sell a book to a local publisher first, which then makes a US edition more likely.

Profile has half the publishing and they control and administer the publishing and distribute and own the records, so our group is a 10-point crew. But we got a lot of money off of the shows.

I wouldn't encourage new writers to start off publishing through electronic media... it still isn't wide enough for the readership they would need to get a good start.

Planet Lucy Press? I incorporated myself to deal with publishing and was calling myself Big Bang Incorporated, which of course has to do with the Big Bang at the beginning of creation.