Sue Monk Kidd Quotes

When I start writing a novel, I have no sense of direction, no idea, really nothing.

I must write the book out in my head now, before I sit down.

I start with an idea that is no more than a paragraph long, and expand it slowly into an outline. But I'm always surprised by the directions things take when I actually start writing.

Actually, after while, finding the ideas is the easy part. Sorting them through and turning them into stories, now, that's the hard work.

Normally I start with a plot, and write a synopsis, and the ideas come from the construction.

Outlining is not writing. Coming up with ideas is not writing. Researching is not writing. Creating characters is not writing. Only writing is writing.

For someone who wants to write a story, they should go on thinking about the story. When it comes up to a level, where it has reached your neck that's when you should go about writing it.

Whenever I write a novel, most of the time it starts with barest slip of an idea.

My writing process often begins with a question. I write down ideas and let them stew for about a year. Then, when I sit down to write, I make a list of characters and try to see how they fit.

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

So in the first draft, I'm inventing people and place with a broad schematic idea of what's going to happen. In the process, of course, I discover all sorts of bigger and more substantial things.

I'm not an outliner. I come up with a premise and then take it from there.

My writing process is such that a story will be in my head for awhile, and I'll start making notes on my computer. I create character sheets that include a character's past, fears, goals and ambitions.

My writing process is very organic. I start with an idea. I have the general story arc and the cast. But then I sit down to write, and things change.

For me, the hardest thing in the world is how to start a book.

As a novelist, you could say that I am dreaming while I am awake, and every day I can continue with yesterday's dream. Because it is a dream, there are so many contradictions and I have to adjust them to make the story work. But, in principle, the original dream does not change.

Actually, I enjoy the process of writing a big long novel.

Before you can write a novel you have to have a number of ideas that come together. One idea is not enough.

The bane of my existence is the synopses that publishers request for a new novel or series. That's where I'm really producing fiction - my final book never ends up looking like the synopsis.

Plot is not my forte. It's like I have to live in my head in the book for a while before I figure out what the story is... My process is a bit messier.

I spend eight months outlining and researching the novel before I begin to write a single word of the prose.

I tend to start with a kernel, a vague concept, and just begin to write things down - notes about a character, lines of dialogue, descriptive passages about a place. One idea fires another. I do that for about a year. By then there's a story, and I'll go on to a complete first draft that sews many of those ragtag pieces together.

My process is thinking, thinking and thinking - thinking about my stories for a long time.

Normally, I spend a week on the outline and take two weeks to write the book.

The most difficult and complicated part of the writing process is the beginning.