Kate DiCamillo Quotes

Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself - it is the occurring which is difficult.

There aren't a lot of 'Aha!' moments in writing.

I'm not a believer that you have to write every day. If I felt industrious, I'd spend ten hours a week writing. The writing is going on all the time in my head; the trick is to capture it. Showers are great. Traffic jams are great.

I keep threatening to keep a formal journal, but whenever I start one it instantly becomes an exercise in self-consciousness. Instead of a journal I manage to have dozens of notebooks with bits and pieces of stories, poems, and notes. Almost every thing I do has its beginning in a notebook of some sort, usually written on a bus or train.

I don't take notes. I don't have any notebooks. I keep on trying to do that because it seems like a very writerly thing to do, but my mind doesn't work that way. I tend to get the idea for a novel in a big splash.

You know, writing isn't easy. It's tedious. Ideas have a gestation period, and after a while, it becomes difficult.

It's tough to know what I'm going to write about. I never really know until it starts happening.

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.

They say it is the first step that costs the effort. I do not find it so. I am sure I could write unlimited 'first chapters'. I have indeed written many.

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

I write every day... I never get ideas unless I'm actually writing. Ideas I get in the shower don't do me any good.

It's kind of a mysterious process, but something will catch my attention, and I'll make a note about it. I may even write a few pages about it, and then I'll put it aside, but I'll sort of keep it in mind. Then as time goes on, other things will gather to it as if it's a magnet, almost, and eventually, there's enough to make the story.

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

I'm one of the lucky writers: plots come easily to me.

I'm not one of these 'the characters write themselves; the story just fell out of me' kind of writers. Wish it was like that.

At the moment, I'm toying with a new idea for a book, but fully engaged with writing screenplays, so the book idea - which needs empty space in my head - is barely formed yet.

I tend to have an endless number of ideas for writing projects. I don't necessarily say that as a good thing. Maybe it's a good thing, but I have ideas for all kinds of projects: contemporary novels, graphic novels, anything that happens to go through my mind.

I write all the time, even if it means recording in the hotel room. I write on the plane, anywhere, anytime I'm inspired or have ideas.

If you write, one of the questions you're always trying to answer is, Where do you get your ideas? And, if you write, you know how pointless a question this is and how difficult it is to answer.

When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough.

I have notebooks and sketchbooks for ideas. I also have drawers full of envelopes covered in quick outlines, scenes or scraps of dialogue that I don't want to forget. I tend to grab whatever's to hand and just get the thing down before it's lost. It's not what you would call a streamlined system.

I find coming up with a title the hardest part of writing a novel.

I find a lot of writing happens when you're not actually at the computer. So I carry a notebook.

You know, as a writer, I'm more of a listener than a writer, cuz if I hear something I will write it down.

A lot of my ideas for books come from newspaper articles. But I don't like to be actively looking for ideas.