Nicola Cornick Quotes

For me, writing never gets easier. It's always hard work. It doesn't matter how many words you wrote the day before, or how many novels you've completed in the last decade: every day you start fresh again with that same blank page, or that same blank screen.

I huff and puff and struggle with every sentence, paragraph and page - sometimes every word as well.

Each time, I think I'm never going to write another book. It never gets easier.

Writing doesn't come easily to me. It gets more and more difficult.

I envy people who write easily. I enjoy the process, but it's not easeful for me.

I find writing really difficult - definitely the most difficult of all the things I do.

There's a danger in romanticizing what it means to be a writer. Because what it really means is hard, hard work. It means tearing your hair out. Feeling like your head is about to explode.

With writing, I love doing it, but there's that love-hate relationship: You're not having a good run, you've hit a wall; it's frustrating.

Writing is agony for me. I work at it eight hours every day, hoping to get six pages, but I am satisfied with three.

Every writer I know has trouble writing.

Let's face it, writing is hell.

Writing has been as difficult for me as for people who don't like to write and as little fun.

Writing has never been that simple for me.

Yeah, writers do hate writing.

I have a problem with beginnings... and endings... and middles. But I don't know what else I would do. I find it very, very difficult to write. It takes everything; it's physically and mentally and emotionally exhausting for me. And my neighbours. And my dog.

I write very, very slowly, and for me, I have to summon all sorts of resources to make one of these pieces work.

Stories are hard. I have friends who knock out stories on a weekly or monthly basis, like they're running on medicinal-strength Updike. But for me a story is as daunting a prospect as a novel.

Writing, overall, has never been what I'd call fun. It's fulfilling. It doesn't come real easy for me.

I hear so many writers say - and these are writers that I trust completely - 'I just started hearing a voice', or, 'The characters came to life'. I am filled with loathing for my own characters when I hear that because they do nothing of the sort. Left to their own devices, they do nothing but drink coffee and complain about their lives.

Writing is the only thing in my life that doesn't get easier. It just doesn't.

Writing never comes easy. The difference between Page 2 and Page Nothing is the difference between life and death.

I know there are writers who like to say that every novel is hard, and it doesn't get easier. That may be the case, and I've only written two. But the first, to me, was characterized by an enduring oscillation between perseverance and a profound doubt.

I don't know any writer for whom it comes easily. Maybe John Updike - a story would just seem to come to him whole, you know, out of a personal experience. But the rest of us, I think, are not so lucky, and I had to work hard, yeah.

I like writing, but it really can be a struggle for me.

Until a book starts forming in your head, you always wonder, 'Am I going to be able to do this again?'