Jayne Anne Phillips Quotes

I've always been ambidextrous, writing short stories and novels, and I pretty much have been writing a novel and a handful of short stories every year since '91.

I only did about one novel a year while I was working full time, but since 1993, I've averaged two and a half books a year.

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

Can you write 200 words a day? 100? 50? In six months, 50 words a day is 9,000 words. That's 2-3 short stories. If you did 200 words every day, in three months that's 36,000 words. That's half a short novel.

No... a novel is a long business. I'm a slow writer, even when I'm doing very well I write slowly.

I seem to produce a novel approximately once every three years.

I write at a pace that suits me, and sometimes it's two books a year, but most often it's one.

In 2007, I probably wrote four screenplays in the entire year. Every three months I was writing a screenplay.

A fortunate author can write maybe twelve novels in his lifetime.

People always ask, 'How do you write so many books?' And I say, I work a lot. I work six or seven days a week.

Luckily I haven't fallen into the trap, which has claimed so many writers, of living from day to day thinking 'Ah, I'll write a book about that.'

I don't finish every story, but I probably write and send out three out of five of them.

Actually, the 14 novels were written over a period of just over 6 years.

I write a thousand words a day.

I write every day. I don't have a writing schedule. I write when I feel like it. Fortunately, I feel like it all the time. I am writing for hours. I do like to write in the morning. I start after breakfast, like 9 o'clock, and I'll write till lunch, about 1. And after lunch, I just have fun.

You can write a short story in two hours. Two hours a day, you have a novel in a year.

All novelists must form their personal pacts in some way with the slowness of their craft. There are some who demand of themselves a 'rate of production,' for whom it's a matter of pride to complete, say, a book every year.

With the novels, I try to write a few pages a day - it doesn't sound much, but it can be difficult if I'm not sure where the story is going.

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

When I am occupied with a work that requires continuity - a novel, for example - I write every day.

When I'm writing a novel or doing other serious writing work, I do it on a schedule that dictates writing either 2,000 words a day or writing until noon. After I hit whichever mark comes first, then I can give my attention to everything else I have to do.

The great writers just kept bringing them out. They didn't care if they repeated themselves.

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.

You know, I always was an early morning or late night writer. Early morning was my favorite; late night was because you had a deadline. And at four in the morning you make up some of your most absurd jokes.

I don't really get into a writing routine until March or April, when I'll write a few hundred words a day, often in a cafe in the morning after the school run.