Jeanette Winterson Quotes

I write two pages - that's all I write. It takes me about an hour. I've learned that's all I'm capable of and to push myself beyond that is foolhardy. It's a very delicate thing, and I will not abuse it. So I write two pages, then I get up from the computer.

Discipline is what makes a writer. If writing was like lifting weights, then I'd look like Mr. Universe. Write every day. Give the Muse a chance to get to know you.

I write in a journal first, briefly. Then read something I've read many times before, for about half an hour, then rework what I wrote the day before.

When I'm working on a novel, I work 70-hour weeks.

There are writers, and I know some of them, who are very disciplined. Who write, like, four pages a day, every day. And it doesn't matter if their dog got run over by a car that day, or they won the Irish sweepstakes. I'm not one of those writers.

I do sit down every day and make myself write. I want 2,000 words every day or 3 single-space pages a day. I think if you are on a deadline, you have to be disciplined. If you turn things in late, you will find yourself without a contract.

Capote wrote every day. He said that's the only way, you have to sit down every day and do it.

To say that I have an undisciplined mind would not be incorrect overall, but it's a little off the mark because I have great discipline when I write - but only for about ten minutes.

Writing a book is such a full-time job. If you're away for a few days, you have to start again.

My goal is two pages a day, five days a week. I never want to write, but I'm always glad that I have done it. After I write, I go to work at the bookstore.

I am always urging my students to honor their writing practice, to set up a schedule.

It's essential to have sacred time for writing. All successful authors have some daily commitment to keep on-track and moving forward.

I write every day, including weekends. For writers, there are no weekends. It's just that your family is around, looking mournful, wondering when you're going to pay attention to them.

The writing comes first for me. Not Facebook, not Twitter, not the Internet or signings or merchandise, or 'the career.' Everything begins and ends with the writing for me, and I build my entire life around sitting my butt down 365 days a year.

The hardest part is making the time to write. Not finding the time to write, mind you. Making.

I'm not the most talented writer in the world. I know that. But I also know that I'm disciplined, that I work my butt off, and that I make myself write as much as I can. Writer's block is a luxury I can't afford. I'm a professional writer, which means that I put my butt in the chair each day, and I write. Simple as that.

My work schedule has changed over the years. The one constant is, when at work on a novel, I try to work seven days a week, so as not to lose touch with that world. Within that, I'm flexible on hours and output.

I could not have written a novel if I hadn't been a journalist first, because it taught me that there's no muse that's going to come down and bestow upon you the mood to write. You just have to do it. I'm definitely not precious.

You have to write every day, and you have to write whether you feel like it or not.

If you only write when the muse strikes, you won't get anything done. You have to write consistently, when your schedule says you should. And that's hard.

I think the way to be a writer is to experience things, certainly, and be open to things, but at some point to become dedicated to the craft of writing and to create a stable environment for that writing to occur in.

I don't answer the phone or do my email; I don't do anything until I've got the day's writing done. I have a word count for every day: 500 for fiction, 1,000 for non-fiction, and journalism is 1,500. That's a level I can sustain.

I'm a person who, when I set out to write, I write. It's just like when you set out to eat, you eat, or when you set out to sleep, you sleep. I don't do somersaults to write something. I just do it.

I tend to write two stories every day, five days a week. It's a real grind. But it also allows me to really try to have my finger on the pulse of injustice in America.

My advice to young writers would be to write every day, even if it is only a few words. Get yourself on the habit of writing and it will become a lifelong one. And find a place to write where you are physically comfortable. You can't concentrate if you aren't. Ernest Hemingway could only write standing up, and Truman Capote could only write lying down!