Jonathan Coe Quotes

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

I really want to write another novel, and I am trying to come up with what the story will be. As I learned with 'Groundswell,' I can't force it; I just have to wait for it to come to me.

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

I would say the reason that I've never written a novel is because I've never written a novel.

I'm not one of these 'the characters write themselves; the story just fell out of me' kind of writers. Wish it was like that.

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.

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.

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.

Rarely does a complete idea come to me. I basically start with just a small scene or a snatch of dialogue and force myself to write and to keep writing. Sometimes it becomes a book.

If somebody says that they want to write a book but do not know what to write about, they will never write a book.

Any writer worth the name is always getting into one thing or getting out of another thing.

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

I think there is often a 'what if' proposition that gets me thinking about all my novels.

I have a lot of books I want to write.

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 have some other novels I want to write. I have a lot of short stories - I love the short story.

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

If you're writing a novel, you're in a room for three or four years. There's not much coming in from the outside.

I've always wanted to write a novel. It's overwhelming and daunting, and it's one of those things that every writer fantasizes about doing.

I find coming up with a title the hardest part of writing a novel.

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?'

In my brief writing life, it means I am still lucky that I have at least one more novel to complete. I do not expect that a story will arrive just because it is time to write another novel. It doesn't happen that way.

I'm remembering one book that I wrote, 'Fourth Grade Rats,' that took a month to write, but most of them, full-length novels, I would say about a year.

I keep telling myself I should try very hard to write a novel of about 210 pages... I don't seem to be capable of it, but I keep hoping it will happen.