Dan Alatorre Quotes

Don't be afraid to get off the internet, the answers aren't all there. You may have to ask a cop about the kickback from a shotgun, or how sweaty they get in summer wearing body armor. Or what color blood is in the moonlight, or the vibrations through a serrated knife's handle you feel in your fingers when you are hacking through somebody's neck and hit cartilage.

The best part of being a writer is you get to tell people you're a writer. That's still considered cool.

Writers need to be open to trying new things. My first bestseller was a cookbook, and from that experience I learned things about marketing a book that benefitted me greatly.

I write most of my stories the way people talk, complete with an occasional run-on sentences and stuff that seems to go around in a few circles before making its point. In a comedy, you can do that.

I get up at 4am or 5am and write for a few hours before the rest of the world wakes up. And I don't drink caffeine. That combination is basically a deal breaker for every other author I know. I don't usual check email, Facebook or Twitter until at least 6:30am, either, another killer for most authors.

My first bestseller was a cookbook. That will make any novelist humble.

I come up with an idea and I'll start throwing little suggestions for possible scenes into a folder, but before I seriously sit down to write Word One, they whole outline is finished. Sue me. It works.

If you write a bad book, mobs do not show up with pitchforks and torches - and odds are you didn't write something bad.

Writers need to get over the fear of hitting the "publish" button.

I wasn't a class clown, because nuns have no sense of humor. They have rulers.

I'm a Best-Selling author and humorist; my brother points out that a humorist is a writer who's not funny enough to call themselves a comedian. Gotta love family.

You can do it. Don't let anyone say you can't. You can.

I write in complete silence using only two fingers so I can't type faster than I edit at the same time, saving me from having to go back. Although it does create a lot of capitalization issues. And punctuation problems. I didn't say it was a good routine.

On working with other writers: You develop honesty and you can then ask the really embarrassing questions. I have learned so many things I didn't want to know, and they were all a result of interesting interviews for background information.

What's my writing style? Lazy.

What I can tell you is DO IT. Publish book one and get book two out as soon as possible. There are very few Harper Lee's. Most of us are going to have to write a few books to get good at it.

Don't have every dialog go in a straight line to solve the problem. Let your characters argue, be sarcastic, disagree or joke around.

When you have writer friends, you have to ask each other awkward questions all the time. It's beyond embarrassing but they get it.

It's rare to see a man step up and say "I can be a great father and learn about gymnastics with my daughter and take her to dance lessons because I love her." I can make time to blow bubbles on the back porch. It doesn't cause your man card to be revoked.

It's amazing how my mind opens up right when I have to run on the treadmill. I've finished three chapters rather than run a mile.

Writers get ideas all day every day. The FedEx guy delivers a package from Sears and the writer is thinking how it could actually be a ticking time bomb.

People are suckers for the truth and they know it when they see it.

Open your soul and they will stop and watch.

I take the rawest, realest moments in anyone's life and I open them up and lay them bare. The innocence of a five year old child, the awkwardness of a teenager's first sexual encounter, the heartbreak of longing for a relationship you can't have, confronting the possibility of the death of your newborn child, whatever it is, you open your soul and put it out there and dare the world to read it, ready to have them stomp on you and laugh, but ready to do it again the next day. You have to put yourself out there as a writer, you can't play it safe. Great writing isn't safe.

In the book (Savvy Stories) you see some very real, very personal moments. The first week of Savvy's life was the longest week of ours. We spent five days in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) worrying that our newborn daughter might die. It was touch and go for a while, and it was extremely difficult to write about. Chapter two gets a lot of people crying. But because we put that honesty out there, readers said "Okay, I can trust this guy." Then they were better able to laugh with us, too.

Who do I think would appreciate my book?
I'm surprised anybody does. Oops, did I say that out loud?

Not knowing stuff - like how your story ends before you start writing - is the seed of a lot of writer's block.

Take what fame or fortune comes your way. My first bestseller was a cookbook, so remember to be open to trying new things. From that experience I learned things about marketing a book that benefitted me greatly and, combined with my sales management experience with Fortune 500 companies, I was able to launch a string of bestsellers.

The more time you can put between you and your manuscript, the more fresh your eyes become and the more mistakes you'll catch. Let a chapter rest for a day, you'll see ways to improve it. Let your completed book rest a month or more and you'll see stuff that's long or that you want to skip. Read it out loud to get rid of awkward phrases and listen to your critique partners if they are good.

I usually end have one outrageous minor character. He or she says the stuff I wish I had said in real life. Readers will love that character.

I wasn't a class clown, because my parents were very strict and because nuns in general have no sense of humor. I mean zero, zip, nada. I wasted some of my best stuff on those old hags! Look at these knuckles - those are ruler marks, and they're still visible all these years later. But I could usually get out of trouble at home if I could get my mom laughing. That's a huge ace up your sleeve as a kid.

Dig deep and go where the pain and fear and joy are, and put it out there. The minute you shy away from pure honesty in your writing, you become a liar.

Don't polish it forever, put it out there. At some point the changes aren't improvements, they're just changes.

You can ask somebody just about anything if you say you're a writer first.

I think if a writer is being honest they'd admit to a file full of a dozen or more stories that are all started to varying degrees. They're like the kid who wants to be a firefighter and a police officer and an astronaut.

If it's funny enough, you can pretty much do anything.