Jean M. Auel Quotes

It is very enjoyable, writing a story. You get this idea. It takes hold of you. And then you spend day and night thinking about how to do it. And then you do it. And much later, you think, 'Oh, yes. That's an interesting question.'

I think there is often a 'what if' proposition that gets me thinking about all my novels.

I'm always writing. There is always a story brewing in my head.

If one day a TV series comes into my head, and that is what I want to write, I'll write it. It just depends what story is in my brain at the time.

I think a conceptual idea comes to me first - something I've been mulling over a lot right before I feel like writing a book - and then the characters start to develop around it.

No matter how many books you've written, whenever you sit down to write a new book, you always feel the same challenge - how do you shape this story into a book that people are going to love.

Once I have a story idea I like it doesn't even matter to me what genre it is, I'm just so happy to have one.

I really want to write another novel, and I am trying to come up with what the story will be. As I learned with 'Groundswell,' I can't force it; I just have to wait for it to come to me.

My novels come from within me; they are things I feel I want to do.

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

Even if I never sold another book, I'd keep writing, because the stories are here, in my head. Stories that just need to be told. I love watching a plot unfold, and feeling the surprise when the unexpected happens.

Usually after finishing a novel, I have a head full of bad ideas for the next one.

If you're writing a novel, you're in a room for three or four years. There's not much coming in from the outside.

My favourite part of writing a book is thinking up the ideas, and that can start a long time before I actually sit down at my desk.

When a book is going well, it tells you where to go.

My most successful books, the ones that I feel the strongest about, are the ones that started with a premise that for me was deeply emotional.

True confession time: I never know where a book is going. I get a gut feeling the story is there, then pursue it with the enthusiasm of a hunting tiger on a trail. If I knew where I was going, I'd get bored out of my mind and stop writing.

When I'm working on one book, part of my imagination is thinking ahead to the next one.

No ideas are harmed in the making of my books, by the way. All I do with my best ideas is run with them, fast as I can, taking notes and occasionally suggesting a left hand turn rather than the right hand one which might have taken us both over a precipice.

Rarely does a complete idea come to me. I basically start with just a small scene or a snatch of dialogue and force myself to write and to keep writing. Sometimes it becomes a book.

I don't feel tentative when I start to write. I've usually thought about a novel or novella for several years and created a lot of juice and density and energy by that time so by the time I get ready to go, I just let 'er fling, you know.

A novel usually begins, in my experience, with a thought or image that won't leave me alone.

I have always wanted to write a novel, and I tried many times but could never find the right story. One day, I was walking on the beach, and the idea for 'Groundswell' hit me. I went into the house and started writing and never stopped.

Any author gets inspired by the experiences and events that happen to him or his immediate circle. While that's where the seed or the idea germinates, by the end of the story, it accounts for hardly anything in the book.

For someone who wants to write a story, they should go on thinking about the story. When it comes up to a level, where it has reached your neck that's when you should go about writing it.