Jennifer Weiner Quotes

I'm such an antsy type of person. I can't write in a room without other people around. I write in coffee shops.

Anything that keeps you happy and writing is part of my writing ritual: I like music, so I tend to have it playing in the background. But if I'm interested, I can write in an airport waiting areas.

I write anywhere - when I have an idea, it's hard not to write. I used to be kind of precious about where I wrote. Everything had to be quiet and I couldn't be disturbed; it really filled my day.

My house has too many distractions. There's the email. There's checking my Amazon ranking. I know I'm the only author who's ever done that, ever. There's the fax. Too many distractions. I like to go out and write.

Some writers say they cannot write in front of a window; many say they cannot function without almost perfect quiet. A writer with only two hours a day can write in the back of an open truck on the Interstate.

WHEN YOU LEAVE YOUR TYPEWRITER YOU LEAVE YOUR MACHINE GUN AND THE RATS COME POURING THROUGH.

I don't listen to anything when I'm writing. I need total quiet, which is astounding, given that I spent years working for a newspaper and having to write features surrounded by ringing phones and people shouting.

Some writers like to work in other places like coffee shops, but I can't - I'd end up people-watching. And if I were at a bookstore, I'd be reading. Sometimes I have some music on, but usually I like it quiet.

Successful writers say you should never work from a desk with a view, and the view I have from this one is a huge distraction. There's a garden bursting with fresh vegetation, and just beyond the high wall at the end of it, I can see the sign of the local pub across the road. Distractions, eh? I'm so easily led.

Sometimes I write with music on, and if I'm in a good flow, I don't even hear it.

There's something to be said in favor of working in isolation in the real world.

Everything I have ever written has been in the same chair, in the same room.

When I usually go to my studio to work, I start with something that is going to take two minutes just to put some idea down and the next thing I know, ten hours have gone by and my family is screaming at me because they want me to come up to have dinner with them.

The problem with too beautiful a view is that it's alright for the mulling stage. But for the writing stage, you want to be somewhere without a view, especially if it is very different from what you're writing.

I don't know about other writers, but for myself, to write I must be relatively quiet - it's very difficult to write with the telephone and the doorbell ringing and conversation going on; I'm not that good a writer to write through all that!

A writer needs to write, period. He or she can't wait for the muse, shouldn't need peace and quiet, and isn't entitled to perfect conditions or the perfect spot.

I don't write listening to music, and in a way it seems silly that any writer should have to explain why not, as it's possibly no different from saying you don't eat gourmet dinners or play tennis while you're at the keyboard.

I never listen to music when I write. It's too much of a distraction.

When you in the studio you don't need everybody calling your phone telling you about what's going on outside the studio. I don't need those distractions.

It amazes me how much noise there is on a set while people are trying to focus and do their jobs. But there's some kind of order within that chaos.

I write in public libraries and sometimes coffee shops. I can't write at home and gave up trying long ago. I need activity around me that I'm forced to block out. It helps me focus.

It's hard to describe why one room and not another feels right for writing. Of course you have to train yourself to be able to write anywhere, but it's nice to feel that each book has a place that belongs to it, where it's home.

If what needs to get done is going to get done, then I can't screw around with the luxury of writing rituals or waiting for pristine writing conditions to magically materialize.

Objectively good spaces to work rarely end up being so; in their faultlessness, quiet and well-equipped studios have a habit of rendering the fear of failure overwhelming. Original thoughts are like shy animals. We sometimes have to look the other way - towards a busy street or terminal - before they run out of their burrows.

Creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.