“You don’t write a book. You write a sentence and then a paragraph and then a page and then a chapter. Looking at writing 400 plus pages or seventy thousand odd words is incredibly daunting, but if you just focus on the immediate picture – say, 500 words – it’s not so overwhelming.”
― Rebecca Serle
“At its heart, ‘Mostly Good Girls’ is about the pressures we put on ourselves to live up to ideas of perfection.”
― Rebecca Serle
“’Ready Player One’ has it all – nostalgia, trivia, adventure, romance, heart, and, dare I say it, some very fascinating social commentary. The novel follows Wade Watts through the virtual reality world, the OASIS, and on a quest to uncover and unlock the secrets buried deep inside.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I was a children’s yoga instructor in high school, which was a lot of fun but hard work. I remember once trying to teach 13 three year olds how to do tree pose… not so easy.”
― Rebecca Serle
“The idea that success is limited is an easy one to believe. We buy into it, and often without even thinking. There aren’t enough resources. Something for you means less for me. I understand it, too. It’s the give and take of the human experience. If you have the apple, I can’t then hold it at the same time… or can I?”
― Rebecca Serle
“No love story ends or begins out of accordance with how it needs to go.”
― Rebecca Serle
“If you’re applying for a creative position, don’t be afraid to get a little creative on your resume.”
― Rebecca Serle
“American fantasy is not a genre we think about too often. Sure, we are familiar with the worlds of English boarding school houses and castles and fairies, but true American fantasy, fantasy that is built on the land of this country, is hard to come by.”
― Rebecca Serle
“When it comes to vampires, Daniel Gillies’s Elijah is the cream of the crop. Since leaving ‘The Vampire Diaries’ to headline ‘The Originals,’ we’ve seen the brother of Klaus grow from the altruistic, steadfast, suit-wearing stud into a complicated, nuanced lead.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I think perfect happiness has a lot to do with peace. For me, I get peace from writing, from the people in my life, and from yoga – om!”
― Rebecca Serle
“That’s the funny thing about time. It is only in looking back that it’s easy to connect the dots. To see exactly why everything needed to happen the way that it did.”
― Rebecca Serle
“It takes a lot for a show to withstand the test of time.”
― Rebecca Serle
“The first thing I thought when I finished Ernest Cline’s ‘Ready Player One’ was, ‘My God, it’s the grown-up’s ‘Harry Potter.” Now this is from a mega ‘HP’ fan, so I mean business, here.”
― Rebecca Serle
“So many tend to brand the Internet as the downfall of youth, but ‘Ready Player One’ hints that it’s more complicated than that.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I first moved to New York, like many twenty-somethings before me, to be a grown up. I was attending an MFA program in the city, starting work at a nonfiction imprint at a reputable publishing house, and excited about being on track to becoming the writer I had always wanted to be.”
― Rebecca Serle
“The adult fiction and writing for children portions of my MFA program were kept very separate, and there was a stigma around those ‘kid people.’”
― Rebecca Serle
“I used the second year of my MFA program to write a young adult novel and began pursuing picture books as well. I loved the economy of this art form, choosing, with pristine attention, the exact right words to tell the exact right story.”
― Rebecca Serle
“It is my greatest wish to teach children what I now believe: that writing is not a burden but a joy.”
― Rebecca Serle
“Writers often like to talk about how intuitive the writing process is, but in truth, building a book is a remarkably unintuitive task. Or, to put it more accurately, you need a lot more than intuition. You need plot and characters. You need a setting. You need a theme that is relevant and supported by your text.”
― Rebecca Serle
“Part of the job of a children’s author is to write books that will be remembered, definitely, but if I might go out on a limb, I will say that the other part, the more important part, is to build books that will help children fall in love with reading. That, to me, is the real job.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I have often said that I think children’s books are like poetry. Finding the exact right words to tell a story is something all writers, regardless of genre, are challenged to do, but it is in children’s that the art of selection really becomes an art.”
― Rebecca Serle
“Children’s authors have to pick words that reflect the spirit of a book and convey its message but also words that light children up, that children will recognize. Words that inspire and comfort. Words that challenge yet don’t patronize. Words that, well, mean something to them.”
― Rebecca Serle
“Picture books have terrible PR amongst the children of this country. Ask any librarian: after a certain age, children just aren’t interested in the picture book section anymore. It’s filled with moms, strollers, and unbalanced toddlers.”
― Rebecca Serle
“Picture books, while less in word count, are certainly not less important. There are unbelievably skillful authors writing in this vein. Authors like Jane O’Connor and Jon Scieszka.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: writing picture books is an art – the art of word choice.”
― Rebecca Serle
“’Goodnight Moon’ is a staple of any nursery bookshelf. So, too, are ‘Harold and the Purple Crayon’ and ‘Madeline.’ These books are just as much a part of mainstream reading culture as ‘The Catcher in the Rye,’ and they are passed down from generation to generation.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I always say it’s a shame picture books get such a bad rep. Illustrations are tough to sell older kids on!”
― Rebecca Serle
“Of course YA authors have a responsibility to their audience.”
― Rebecca Serle
“The truth is that ‘Twilight’ is not a story about Bella and Jacob. It’s a story about Bella and Edward. That was the story this writer wanted to tell.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I remember what it feels like to be fourteen or sixteen, to have the world folded out in front of you, and to have a million choices ahead. I also remember what it feels like to be so open and impressionable and to want something so badly it’s impossible to see that maybe it isn’t the best thing for you.”
― Rebecca Serle
“At its best, writing is a dialogue. It’s one of the things I love about children’s: the fact that this dialogue is really there from the get-go, from the start of writing.”
― Rebecca Serle
“The truth is there are people who love horror movies. I don’t happen to be one of those people.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I don’t watch horror films, because I don’t want those images in my psyche, and I resent having them forced on me before a movie of my choosing.”
― Rebecca Serle
“Leave horror previews for horror movies. At least you know the people going have made a choice that they want to see them.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I’ve tried in the past to blog about ghostwriting and have failed. I have a lot of opinions on the whole issue, and I’m constantly censoring myself to make sure I don’t just sound like a bitter writer.”
― Rebecca Serle
“Let me get something straight: I have no problem with ghostwriting as a thing unto itself. What bothers me is the way it’s shrouded in secrecy, ignored to the point of straight-up lying. Why not be honest?”
― Rebecca Serle
“Writing is hard. It takes commitment and determination and a good part talent. It’s not an afterthought, an addendum – it’s a career.”
― Rebecca Serle
“Everyone has a story to tell, and in a perfect world, everyone would get the opportunity to tell it. Some of us have the stories, some of us have the words, and some of us have both. Let’s honor the portions we bring to the table and give credit where credit is due.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I love that the collapse of The Other Side is being felt in both ‘The Vampire Diaries’ and ‘The Originals’ universes – as someone who is a fan of both shows, it’s very fun to watch.”
― Rebecca Serle
“At 22, and on my fourth day in New York, I was lucky enough to meet my mentor.”
― Rebecca Serle
“In her book ‘Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,’ Sheryl Sandberg talks about the mentor/mentee relationship – and how it needs to be organic. She goes on to explain how important it is for men and women to step into mentoring roles. I would argue that not only is it important – but it’s important far earlier than we think.”
― Rebecca Serle
“If you see someone struggling, offer input. If someone comes to you with a question, don’t assume they should seek a higher up for the answer.”
― Rebecca Serle
“By refusing to lend a hand, we are not only robbing our colleagues and peers of the opportunity to gain guidance, but we are also robbing ourselves of the opportunity to lead.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I was lucky to have made it to 23 before my world fell apart, but when it did, I had no idea how to survive. It was a rough year. I cried – a lot. I complained – a lot. I also wrote – a lot.”
― Rebecca Serle
“’When You Were Mine’ is about heartbreak.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I am a young adult author, and so are quite a few of my friends. We all write books for the same demographic; many of us are even published by the same publishing house. Two of us, in fact, share the same editor.”
― Rebecca Serle
“Whenever someone asks me for career advice, I always tell them to find a mentor. Find someone who has done what you want to do, and study the way they got there.”
― Rebecca Serle
“When someone around you succeeds, it does not mean they’ve taken that spot from you. What it means is that you are in the atmosphere of someone who is creating.”
― Rebecca Serle
“For many writers, selling a book is the ultimate dream.”
― Rebecca Serle
“Writing is probably the least glamorous profession there is. This doesn’t change when you become an author.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I don’t have to mumble something under my breath when someone asks me what I do anymore. I can just say, definitively, ‘I’m an author.’ And the best part? That’s not a myth. That’s just the truth.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I often lament that new picture books don’t get read because the classics hold up so well. It’s a ridiculous complaint because, um, the classics hold up so well.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I get asked a lot what books I recommend for a nursery, home library, etc., and I always tell parents to start with what they loved as children, what they want to share, and broaden out from there.”
― Rebecca Serle
“’The Borrowers’ is the story of tiny people who live beneath the floorboards of houses and borrow from the occupants. I may have tried to pull up a plank or two because of it.”
― Rebecca Serle
“My favorite ‘Eloise’ book is probably ‘Eloise in Paris.’”
― Rebecca Serle
“Defining success is an ongoing challenge.”
― Rebecca Serle
“When I write novels, it’s just me alone in a room.”
― Rebecca Serle
“Seriously, I am a terrible plotter when it comes to my novels. Terrible. I love to kind of feel my way into a book.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I think that one of the reasons Shakespeare withstands the test of time is that his themes are so universal.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I love anything by Deb Caletti. She’s my absolute favorite young adult author. I love Ally Carter as well.”
― Rebecca Serle
“’Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Bronte has been my all-time favorite book since I was in middle school.”
― Rebecca Serle
“One of the things that defines YA is a really strong narrative. Adults love YA because, at the end of the day, they’re good stories and page-turners. The other element is emotion. The teen years are a very emotional and intense time, and I think it’s a time we that we can all relate to and remember.”
― Rebecca Serle
“Every writer, no matter published, unpublished, award-winning, or bestselling, faces insecurity. It crops up everywhere and, in my personal experience, nearly every day. It’s just a part of the process.”
― Rebecca Serle
“Writing isn’t manual labor. Nor is it emptying the dishwasher or paying bills. It’s work, sure, but sometimes it should be fun.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I used to think that if I was ever so lucky as to get a book deal that I would write all the time. All day, every day. I’d write three books a year. The truth, though, is that writing all day isn’t really feasible. I could do it, but I’d be folding in on a lot of other aspects of my life, things I care about. And I wouldn’t be happy.”
― Rebecca Serle
“My first novel, ‘When You Were Mine,’ was a very, very personal story and drew a lot on the people in my life and the relationships that I had.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I am a very big ‘Vampire Diaries’ fan, and I was a huge Stefan and Elena fan. That love story was one of the most beautiful ones I had ever seen on screen. I loved it.”
― Rebecca Serle
“It was always a dream of mine to create a show.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I certainly think that there’s a little bit of me in all of my characters, because I feel like the only way you can write is if you put a little bit of yourself in there.”
― Rebecca Serle
“Shakespeare is so fundamental to the way we see story. A tremendous amount of narratives come from him – more than many authors are aware, I think.”
― Rebecca Serle
“It’s devastating when that happens, when someone just ups and leaves for no reason, but love does sometimes go wrong.”
― Rebecca Serle
“Some of these love stories can be destructive as examples of what it means to really love. To think that someone is your one and only, that you’re fated to be with this person, is a really powerful, sexy fantasy – but it is a fantasy, at least in part.”
― Rebecca Serle
“We need to take a far more active role in love than ‘Romeo and Juliet’ would lead us to believe. Perhaps that’s what Shakespeare’s saying, in a way. We can’t leave it all up to fate.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I always say being a writer is the best gig around. I love it.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I’m a total fangirl for Nancy Meyers. I love all her movies – ‘Something’s Gotta Give,’ ‘Father of the Bride,’ ‘The Parent Trap,’ etc. I also love Woody Allen – ‘Annie Hall’ and ‘Manhattan’ are my favorites.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I really am so grateful to get to do what it is I love – build worlds. Most of my job is playing make-believe, getting to know the people in my head, and letting them help me tell their stories.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I don’t really think of past experiences as ‘mistakes’ – I think everything brings us where we need to go and teaches us what we need to learn. I’m grateful for all my wobbles because I wouldn’t be here without them.”
― Rebecca Serle
“If you want to be a writer, first and foremost, you must write. If you write, you’re a writer. Period.”
― Rebecca Serle
“The best way to get me to write more books is to read the ones that exist!”
― Rebecca Serle
“My first book, ‘When You Were Mine,’ got optioned for film and went into preproduction as ‘Rosaline.’ That was the classic model: Hollywood calls, options book, and that’s it. You sign on the dotted line.”
― Rebecca Serle
“I fell in love with the young adult space watching ‘Dawson’s Creek’ and ‘Roswell.’ I’ve been a fan my whole life, and it was always a dream of mine to contribute to that area.”
― Rebecca Serle
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