I hate first drafts, and it never gets easier. People always wonder what kind of superhero power they'd like to have. I wanted the ability for someone to just open up my brain and take out the entire first draft and lay it down in front of me so I can just focus on the second, third and fourth drafts.
— Judy Blume
I meet people on the street or at book signings and they tend to treat me as if they know me, as if we're connected. It's great.
When I was growing up, I dreamed about becoming a cowgirl, a detective, a spy, a great actress, or a ballerina. Not a dentist, like my father, or a homemaker, like my mother - and certainly not a writer, although I always loved to read.
Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won't have as much censorship because we won't have as much fear.
What I remember when I started to write was how I couldn't wait to get up in the morning to get to my characters.
I'm an e-mail junkie though I'm trying to read my in-box only twice a day and to answer all at once.
The child from nine to 12 interests me very much. And so, those were the years that I like to write about, when I'm writing.
Ideas seem to come from everywhere - my life, everything I see, hear, and read, and most of all, from my imagination. I have a lot of imagination.
I always have trouble with titles for my books. I usually have no title until the editor has to present the book and calls me frantically, 'Judy, we need a title.'
The creative process; I enjoy thinking up the stories and situations for my books.
The best books come from someplace inside. You don't write because you want to, but because you have to.
The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.
I am a big defender of 'Harry Potter,' and I think any book that gets kids to read are books that we should cherish, we should be thankful for them.
I wanted to write what I remembered to be true.
I never thought about writing. I was married young, I was still in college, as we did then, and I had two babies before I was 25, and I loved them, and I loved taking care of them, but I was a little bit cuckoo, staying at home and not having a creative outlet.
It's all about your determination, I think, as much as anything. There are a lot of people with talent, but it's that determination.
A good writer is always a people watcher.
I love to watch movies.
I didn't know anything about writers. It never occurred to me they were regular people and that I could grow up to become one, even though I loved to make up stories inside my head.
It's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written.
When I'm writing a book, you can't think about your audience. You're going to be in big trouble if you think about it. You're got to write from deep inside.
I loved to read, and I think any child who loves to read will read anything, including the back of the cereal box, which I did every morning.
I think people who write for kids, we have that ability to go back into our own lives.
When I started to write, it was the '70s, and throughout that decade, we didn't have any problems with book challenges or censorship.
I'm really quite bad at coming up with plot ideas. I like to create characters and just see what will happen to them when I let them loose!
