Jeff Nichols Quotes

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

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.

My favourite part of writing a book is thinking up the ideas, and that can start a long time before I actually sit down at my desk.

I don't take notes. I don't have any notebooks. I keep on trying to do that because it seems like a very writerly thing to do, but my mind doesn't work that way. I tend to get the idea for a novel in a big splash.

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

I think a conceptual idea comes to me first - something I've been mulling over a lot right before I feel like writing a book - and then the characters start to develop around it.

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

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

When I'm working on one book, part of my imagination is thinking ahead to the next one.

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.

I think I always have many ideas for books in my head. It's like a forest full of mushrooms. Some are big, some are small.

What I have to write, the story, it is always going on in my mind. What incidences I can add in the story - it is a continuous process.

I've always got maybe around four different titles in mind, maybe about four different ideas that I'd love to make.

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.

It is very enjoyable, writing a story. You get this idea. It takes hold of you. And then you spend day and night thinking about how to do it. And then you do it. And much later, you think, 'Oh, yes. That's an interesting question.'

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

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

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.

I do see myself as someone who has a lot of story ideas.

I sometimes start keeping a journal about the writing process itself. Particularly when I get the ideas, and I am trying to brood over the chaos phase. In writing a novel, you really have to brood over a lot of chaos of ideas and possibilities.

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

I've never really thought of writing books. I've never thought about stories as a part of a collection.

I was twenty-seven when I came up with the idea for my first novel.

If you're having trouble finishing a book, it might be that you're trying to fix it as you go. Just finish the story, no matter how terrible you think that first draft is. Then let it cool off. In other words, don't look at it for a while. Then you can rewrite it.