Dave Itzkoff Quotes

I have several writer friends, but I don't involve them in my work process. I'm more likely to talk about the business of publishing with them.

Years ago, when I was writing westerns, other writers who were friends of mine wanted me to collaborate with them. And it just didn't work.

With writing, I prefer the solo effort, but when a team is working right, as it did on 'The Grifters,' boy, it's exhilarating.

We were 15 minutes into it and nothing was happening; I thought, well, that's not going to work. Then all of a sudden everything clicked. I don't know how long it took us, but I would just show up at Alison's [McGhee] office. She would type and we'd just kick it back and forth. Writing is so scary for me, such a lonely endeavor, and it became a wonderful thing to show up and have somebody else go through it with me. It was actually a wonderful experience.

I was lucky in getting my first book published; my first book was 'Bunnicula,' which I wrote with my late wife Debbie, for the fun of it.

Harper Lee and Truman Capote became friends as next-door neighbors in the late 1920s, when they were about kindergarten age. From the start, they recognized in each other "an apartness," as Capote later expressed it; and both loved reading. When Lee's father gave them an old Underwood typewriter, they began writing original stories together.

Screenwriting is a much more collaborative effort. When you write a novel, it's just you, with input from your editor.

Anyway, he and I worked on the script together, and I must say he was a joy to work with. Very enthusiastic.

I've never written a book before.

I wrote four novels under the name Amy Silver. The first one was commissioned, and I was given basically the whole plot and the characters. They told me what to do, and I went straight away and did it. After that, I continued, and I was coming up with more my own ideas, although they did steer me.

I know very well that one cannot become an author by just writing a book.

As science-fiction was what I read in college, it was natural that I should be tempted to write it. So I did, and continued to do so, even while I was co-authoring mysteries with my husband Evan.

I never want to co-write. People never just write a quarter of a book, do they? I don't think you can get your story across.

There were many times in my initial days as a writer when I had felt the need to talk to someone, to leverage on someone's experience, to learn from someone who had written and published a book.

If I could get someone like John Grisham or someone like that to sit down and write a book with me, I'd love that.

I tend to write, either myself, or I sometimes write with a co-writer, my friend that lives up the road. It's usually a relatively solitary thing, but I do like coming up with ideas.

I cannot write in isolation. I write with people around me.

I am writing things on my own, but I really believe co-writing makes you a better writer.

I love co-writing. That whole process is a challenge in that good writers are pushing you.

I've been writing the show with Nigel Coan, the director of 'Luxury Comedy', and Tom Meeten. Three's good. With two, you can lock horns a bit. On your own, you're not sure whether what you've made is any good. I don't know how people write novels. I would go mad.

Often I go to book festivals and they just turn authors into celebrities.'

Well, unlike a lot of authors, I will be the one to cop to having a ghostwriter. I've always written with someone else.

Publishing a book is a very different thing than writing one.

Ben Karlin is a friend of mine and was a writer on 'The Daily Show.' He's just put out a book and asked a bunch of writers from various disciplines to contribute. It was called 'Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me,' and of course I agreed, and then I actually had to sit down and write it. God, writing fiction is terrifying.

It's fun to have someone to talk to and get input from when you write. I usually get stuck when I'm just in my room writing by myself.