Greg Egan Quotes

I don't outline. I sit down to write, and I take the ride. If something starts to not feel right, I go back to the last place that felt like jazz to me.

I end up writing about all kinds of things. I never make an attempt to write about anything in particular. I don't have a little list of topics to write about.

I didn't have any agenda or plan when I started writing stuff.

When I start to write, I don't have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come.

I don't ever know where I'm going. Because one of the wonderful things about writing, which is different than working in programming, you don't need to know. You could just write and discover where you're going. And it's a great deal of fun.

Writing was my route to creative expression, and I needed to write about the things that interested me.

When I sit down to write, I don't have any real goals except to follow one good sentence with another... I'm not the kind of writer who has a map.

I write what I'm interested in.

I don't outline at all; I don't find it useful, and I don't like the way it boxes me in. I like the element of surprise and spontaneity, of letting the story find its own way.

I simply don't understand authors that know everything before they write it; it seems so cold blooded. I think it's lovely when the story takes over and goes somewhere else.

I just write what comes along. I don't have a detailed master plan.

When I write a book, I don't have an idea of what I'm doing. I just go where it leads.

I don't set out to write something. I more just write, and later on, I discover what it's about.

I never plan my novels because if I know what is going to happen, it bores me rigid. I let the story tell itself.

I don't pare down much. I write the beginning of a story in a notebook and it comes out very close to what it will be in the end. There is not much deliberateness about it.

The great thing about being a novelist is that you organize your own day.

The way I write is very much without kind of a goal. I have something I'm interested in and then I decide I'm going to explore it. I don't know where the characters are going to go, I don't know what the movie is going to do or what the screenplay is going to do. For me, that's the way to keep it alive.

When I decide to write a story, I don't think too much about what I want it to be, I just let things come naturally and this is how it turns out. It's just how my subconscious works.

I used to be very rigid because I just wanted to get through it. Now, if I think a scene should go a certain way and it goes another, I'm able to go that new way with ease.

Every book is like starting over again. I've written books every way possible - from using tight outlines to writing from the seat of my pants. Both ways work.

I tell the stories that are of interest to me.

I like to sit down every day and not know where the book is going. I have no idea where the book is going to go or how it's going to end as I'm writing it.

My writing process is very organic. I start with an idea. I have the general story arc and the cast. But then I sit down to write, and things change.

I don't have a style. I just try to write what the story demands.

Basically, I just write whatever story grabs me rather than considering the genre.