Jojo Moyes Quotes

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

As far as personal philosophies go, I think you should know your ending. I know that's radically different from a lot of other writers who just organically like to find the story. Other than that, I try different things and mess around. I'm still just playing a good bit.

I have two ideas for novels at the moment, neither of them all that conventional, but I'm not ready to choose between them yet, let alone settle down to the process of writing.

When I started working on 'Stay With Me,' I thought it would take two years to complete the novel.

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.

It makes more sense to write one big book - a novel or nonfiction narrative - than to write many stories or essays. Into a long, ambitious project you can fit or pour all you possess and learn.

With any novel that you begin, you can't foresee how difficult or easy it's going to be, and you can't really prepare yourself. You just have a take it one step at a time and know that it's all right to keep going - you can always fix it.

I started a second novel seven times and I had to throw them away.

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

For the novels I wrote before selling anything, I didn't outline much. I had a vague idea of the story.

I was very afraid to write a novel - it was a dream for a very long time, and it was one of the few things that I was afraid to try.

I'm always writing. There is always a story brewing in my head.

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.

Why do I like to write short stories? Well, I certainly didn't intend to. I was going to write a novel. And still! I still come up with ideas for novels. And I even start novels. But something happens to them. They break up. I look at what I really want to do with the material, and it never turns out to be a novel.

Usually, by the time I hit 'save' before taking a nap, my word count has gone down, but the world I'm creating feels more tangible than it did before.

I have always wanted to write a novel, and I tried many times but could never find the right story. One day, I was walking on the beach, and the idea for 'Groundswell' hit me. I went into the house and started writing and never stopped.

I found some time ago that I have to be careful, while working on a novel, what I read.

There's a lot of ignorance about how long it takes to write a novel. There's a lot of ignorance about how long a novel is in your head before you start to write it.

Every time that I write a novel I am convinced for at least two years that it is the last one, because a novel is like a child. It takes two years after its birth. You have to take care of it. It starts walking, and then speaking.

I have another Russian idea, too, with a place and a period, so I guess I have enough to keep me busy for quite some time, especially considering that I'm such a slow writer.

I always say that, for me, writing a book is like a wacky Greyhound bus trip - I know where I'm starting and where I'll end up, but I have no idea what will happen along the way.

I never know how a novel is going to end, because you don't really know what's going to be at the bottom of a novel until you excavate it.

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

I've been writing for a long time. I sat down to write my first novel in the middle of March of 1982.

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.