Siddhartha Mukherjee Quotes

Don't force yourself to write. Some people can write a novel in a few months, whereas for others it can take over a year. I'm lucky to be one of the former - but, even so, if I'm not in the mood to write, I won't. I'll go off, do something else and come back to it when I'm ready.

I used to get up and write every day, even if I wasn't working on a specific thing. Now, when I have a thing I'm in the middle of, I do that, but when I'm not, time can go by when I'm not writing at all.

I've always kind of wrote when I wanted to. Once I get the idea in my head and get it outlined out, I usually just sit and write until it's done.

I'm not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning, put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I've never understood.

I have nothing like a writing routine. I sometimes have trouble buckling down to write at home.

I don't even subscribe to writer's block being a truthful thing. I've had writer's laziness quite often. But I think it's all about sitting down and facing down the blank page and doing it, and I've always been ok at that.

I'm always amazed by writers who tell me they plan everything at the beginning. I feel their writing days must be very bland.

Inspiration comes from so many sources. Music, other fiction, the non-fiction I read, TV shows, films, news reports, people I know, stories I hear, misheard words or lyrics, dreams... Motivation? The memory of the rush I get from a really good writing session - even on a bad day, I know I'll find that again if I keep going.

I don't write on demand - I wait for inspiration to come.

The writing part of my life never changes, because that's just when the inspiration comes.

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.

I've been known to write 10 pages a day for 10 days running before I take a breath. I am not a disciplined writer. I'm one of those people who laughingly call themselves inspirational writers, which basically means someone who has no control over their own creative process.

If you're waiting for the perfect moment, you'll never write a thing because it will never arrive. I have no routine. I have no foolproof anything. There's nothing foolproof.

You always need that spark of imagination. Sometimes I'm midway through a book before it happens. However, I don't wait for the muse to descend, I sit down every day and I work when I'm not delivering lambs on the farm.

I'm not a disciplined writer.

A writer who isn't writing is asking for trouble.

I suddenly realised, hey, I'm not a lazy idiot, I'm an idler! It's something to aspire to, it's part of the creative process! That's fantastic!

Good old-fashioned, puritanical work guilt is, for me, a better colleague than any Muse. If I reach my weekly word target by Friday afternoon, then the weekend is guilt-free.

There are days when I'll write for 15 minutes and have to give up and move around, and I'll write another paragraph and give up again. On other days I get intensely - focused on the process, sit down at 8 A.M. and won't get up until 8 P.M.

Well, certainly I don't think that there are very many good writers who don't live without a sense of tension. If they haven't got one immediately available to them, then they usually manage to manufacture it in their private lives.

I do not set specific work hours as some writers do. I generally stay with a chapter until I am satisfied, do very little rewriting, and if a scene is going well, I've been known to keep night owl hours.

I write all the time, whether I feel like it or not. I never get inspired unless I'm already writing.

If you want to be a professional writer then you need to write consistently. Inspiration strikes about once every blue moon which, for me, is once every two and a half to three months, which is when I'll get really and truly inspired about something.

A manuscript under way always gave me something to do; only while enduring the aimlessness between books was I truly glum.

I go through periods where I work a great deal at all hours of the day whenever I am around a typewriter, and then I go through spells where I don't do anything. I just sort of have lunch - all day. I never have been able to stick to a schedule. I work when there is something due or when I am really excited about a piece.