J. K. Rowling Quotes

And once I know what the first page is, then the rest will come.

I typically spend a year thinking about a book before I begin writing it.

My general writing preface is to write an outline and then ignore about half of it, both on a micro level with the individual book, and on a macro level with the series as a whole, and that's pretty much what's happened.

I don't start a novel until I have lived with the story for awhile to the point of actually writing an outline and after a number of books I've learned that the more time I spend on the outline the easier the book is to write. And if I cheat on the outline I get in trouble with the book.

When I'm writing a script, before I can write dialogue or anything, I have two or three hundred pages of notes, which takes me a year. So, it's not like "what happens next." I've got things that I'm thinking about but I don't settle on them. And if I try to write dialogue before then, I can't. It's just garbage.

I can certainly be surprised by turns a story takes, but usually not once I'm actually in the writing/drawing stage. In the plotting stage, anything can happen. That's why I try to finish that part before I start writing. I may be exaggerating here - I'm sure there are times when I think of something part-way through that changes the story, but the ultimate outcome doesn't change. Or not yet. It could always happen.

I hate outlines. I have a broad sense of where the story is going; I know the end, I know the end of the principal characters, and I know the major turning points and events from the books, the climaxes for each book, but I don't necessarily know each twist and turn along the way. That's something I discover in the course of writing and that's what makes writing enjoyable. I think if I outlined comprehensively and stuck to the outline the actual writing would be boring.

Well, first you have to love writing. A lot of authors love having written. But I enjoy the actual writing. Beside that, I think the main reason I can be so prolific is the huge amount of planning I do before I start to write. I do a very complete, chapter-by-chapter outline of every book I write. When I sit down to write, I already know everything that's going to happen in the book. This means I've done all the important thinking, and I can relax and enjoy the writing. I could never write so many books if I didn't outline them first.

I write books that way - I put a first line down and say, "Where does this go?"

I craft everything in the beginning. I know where the characters are going before I start writing the book.

I have these huge black foam boards on the wall, and tacked to them, I have these white punch cards with my story ideas, scenes and notes.

My writing process often begins with a question. I write down ideas and let them stew for about a year. Then, when I sit down to write, I make a list of characters and try to see how they fit.

I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you're actually sitting down putting words to the paper.

I must write the book out in my head now, before I sit down.

Before I ever put anything on paper, Jerry and I would talk back and forth.

I assemble my ideas in pieces on a computer file, then gradually find a place for them on a piece of scaffolding I erect.

Outlining is not writing. Coming up with ideas is not writing. Researching is not writing. Creating characters is not writing. Only writing is writing.

I have two ideas for novels at the moment, neither of them all that conventional, but I'm not ready to choose between them yet, let alone settle down to the process of writing.

I really need to know where I'm going with fiction to write it in a way that at least I'm happy with. And I really think that a lot of fiction books end badly because terrific writers said, "I'll just figure it out" and plunge in, but have created so many problems that they are kind of impossible to solve. I mean, I'm talking really good writers do this and you can tell when they got to the end they either had to do something preposterous or they just don't really resolve things. So for fiction I spend a lot more time outlining and for humor I really don't do much of it.

The most enjoyable part in writing a series is being able to visit a world I have created and revisit old friends. The challenges are making the book fresh and new for readers who have started from the beginning while still adding old information for new readers.

There are certain things that I'll hear about and that I think will make a great book and I put it in a file. Sometimes it's a situation that interests me, and I don't even realize what I'm trying to say about it until I get closer to it. Sometimes the book after that I've written 125 pages of, and I can tell you what the book is after that. I just sort of have a linear progression, but more than anything, the topics land in your lap. I don't feel that I go out searching for them.

Sometimes I'll ask the book writer to write a monologue, not to be performed, just as if they were notes for the character.

I always write the end of everything first. I always write the last chapters of my books before I write the beginning....Then I go back to the beginning. I mean, it's always nice to know where you're going is my theory.

I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on. But routinely when I finish a book, I think, "What will I do? Where will I get an idea?" And a kind of low-level panic sets in. And then eventually something happens. I don't know. If I knew how it happened I would repeat the process, but I don't know - something just occurs to me.

Writing a book is as different from digital curation as night and day. Digital curation is a series of split-second decisions: good/no good. It can even be done algorithmically. Writing is process-intensive activity.