Claire Cameron Quotes

I hate thinking about writer's block! I don't have writer's block much, knock on wood, but if I do, I think it's usually because I haven't done enough research and am therefore unable to create a fully realized world.

I'll usually see a scene in my head, playing like a movie trailer. After I've written that scene, everything takes off from there.

How much research I have to do depends on the nature of the story. For fantasy, none at all.

People ask me how I do research for my science fiction. The answer is, I never do any research.

I don't stare at a sheet of paper and try to think of a good word to use. I try to see where the story should go.

Being a playwright is like the equivalent of doing a jigsaw puzzle that has 1,500 pieces, and it's a jigsaw of a blue sky. Not a cloud in sight.

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

I do see myself as someone who has a lot of story ideas.

There are many ways to go about a story. And if you give yourself some formal constraints, it just makes the job so much - maybe 'easier' isn't the right word, but because you know your boundaries, you can just play within those boundaries much more, so it's much more fun to do.

Writing is a process of discovering. I could never outline a narrative; that just sounds boring. There's no joy of discovery in what you're doing if that's your strategy.

Trying to solve the mystery is what I enjoy most about writing.

I don't necessarily start with the beginning of the book. I just start with the part of the story that's most vivid in my imagination and work forward and backward from there.

Each book first begins with a little idea.

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.

My process is thinking, thinking and thinking - thinking about my stories for a long time.

I sometimes feel as if ideas for a novel kind of pop up like numbers in a bingo tumbler, and then they're ready to go.

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

I'm pretty restless in bed, so I can lie there for a couple of hours and be like, 'Hey, that happened today. What if that happened at a zoo?' I'll jot the idea down. Then I'm like, 'All right, so now that it's a zoo, that penguin's loose,' or, whatever. I usually start with broad ideas.

I think I always have many ideas for books in my head. It's like a forest full of mushrooms. Some are big, some are small.

What I have to write, the story, it is always going on in my mind. What incidences I can add in the story - it is a continuous process.

I'm often asked how I get ideas for my stories. The answer is there's no single way; every story is different.

Whenever I write a novel, most of the time it starts with barest slip of an idea.

I keep my options open about my next story, there will always be those vague discussions at home.

I remember how I would wait for a play idea. I wasted a tremendous amount of time. I didn't realize that ideas could be made into movies or novels.

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.'