Irvine Welsh Quotes

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

I started writing novels by not thinking about actually writing a whole novel - that felt altogether too daunting. I thought out a rough idea, then wrote chapter by chapter, and then by the time I'd hit 40,000 words, it was a challenge just to see if I could get to the end.

My novels aren't really generated by a single conceptual spark; it's more a process of many different elements that come together unexpectedly over a long period of time.

I found some time ago that I have to be careful, while working on a novel, what I read.

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

As far as personal philosophies go, I think you should know your ending. I know that's radically different from a lot of other writers who just organically like to find the story. Other than that, I try different things and mess around. I'm still just playing a good bit.

There's a lot of ignorance about how long it takes to write a novel. There's a lot of ignorance about how long a novel is in your head before you start to write it.

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

A novel usually takes me two years. A year to research and plan and dream. Then a year to write.

A lot of new writers assume you have to know the where the story is going and that it flows out as molten gold. But really, sometimes you think you are going to one place, but then you decide that is dumb idea. Then you go somewhere else and it is a worse idea. But then you switch again and you might have a beautiful accident.

Here's a secret. Many novelists, if they are pressed and if they are being honest, will admit that the finished book is a rather rough translation of the book they'd intended to write.

Actually, I enjoy the process of writing a big long novel.

I am never really surprised at the way my books take shape. They are just not as perfect as I'd like them to be.

For me as a writer, the story has always taken precedence over everything else. I have never sat down to write with broad, sweeping ideas in mind, and certainly never with a specific agenda.

Jigsaw Lady is the working title of a science fiction novel I've had in my head for darn near 15 years. I think I'll start work on it next year (in all my spare time) but I'd like to get it finished some day.

The process of writing a novel begins with a pang, a moment of recognition, and a situation, a character, or something you read in a paper, that seems to go off, like a solar flare inside your head.

For me, novels coalesce into being, rather than arrive fully formed.

Sometimes some of these little side excursions are useful and I manage to fit them in the book somewhere.

I never know when I finish the novel I am writing which will be the next novel out of the station.

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

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.

Writing is a strange and solitary activity. There are dispiriting times when you start working on the first few pages of a novel. Every day, you have the feeling you are on the wrong track. This creates a strong urge to go back and follow a different path. It is important not to give in to this urge but to keep going.

I loved writing fiction. I mean, once I found the character, or the characters, and knew who they were and knew their back-stories, it really - I mean, I went into my studio every day, thinking, 'What's gonna happen to Billy today?'

I started to write in 2001. I wrote the books for the fun of it. It was an old idea I had had since the nineties.