Alexander McCall Smith Quotes

Most writers can write three times as many books as I have and still live a life.

Actually, the 14 novels were written over a period of just over 6 years.

The thing is - do we really need another writer who writes a book every eighteen months, whether the quality is wonderful or not? I mean, maybe. But I can name twenty off the top of my head who do it. Maybe what we need is a writer like me who goes very slow, as well.

I've written five books, a book every three years. I'm fairly lazy and it doesn't take that much...people who are not lazy are Isaac Asimov.

I reckon I can count on 30 more writing years, averaging a book a year (I can't keep up the 2-2.5 a year I used to do these days). And these days I've gotten round to wondering, for each new idea, "do I want to be remembered for this?" before I get to the point of spending a year on it.

A fortunate author can write maybe twelve novels in his lifetime.

I seem to produce a novel approximately once every three years.

And then I wrote my first autobiography when I - well, it was 23 years ago. And since then I've written about one book every two years.

I write at a pace that suits me, and sometimes it's two books a year, but most often it's one.

If you interrupt the writing of fast narrative with too much introspection and self-criticism, you will be lucky if you write 500 words a day and you will be disgusted with them into the bargain. By following my formula, you write 2,000 words a day and you aren’t disgusted with them until the book is finished, which will be in about six weeks.

I began to write when I was seven, and I have been writing off and on ever since. It is still off and on. You can say that when I am on, when I know I have a book which I am going to write, then I write two thousand words a day. That's so many pages longhand.

The definition of a writing career, is write a book, write another book, write another book

Well, first you have to love writing. A lot of authors love having written. But I enjoy the actual writing. Beside that, I think the main reason I can be so prolific is the huge amount of planning I do before I start to write. I do a very complete, chapter-by-chapter outline of every book I write. When I sit down to write, I already know everything that's going to happen in the book. This means I've done all the important thinking, and I can relax and enjoy the writing. I could never write so many books if I didn't outline them first.

I don't set out to write a play a year. Sometimes I've written two plays a year. There was a period of a year and half when I only wrote half a play. If it depresses some critics that I seem prolific, well, that's their problem as much as mine.

Since 1988, I have been writing steadily. I did decide a couple of years or so ago to scale back to writing one book a year - a sort of semi-retirement. But I never did have much success with that plan!

I don't read books regularly, because I'm always writing them. I've written 30 books, thousands of pages.

You're always told by your publisher that you must only write one book a year and some years you should perhaps write none at all.

Books fall from Garry Wills like leaves from a maple tree in a sort of permanent October.

I've always been ambidextrous, writing short stories and novels, and I pretty much have been writing a novel and a handful of short stories every year since '91.

In the first year, 1988, I wrote and sold 3 novels.

I don't write constantly; it's two serials and a novel a year.

I've always been a very prolific writer.

I still want to give my public, such as it is, a book a year.

If you imagine writing 1,000 words a day, which most journalists do, that would be a very long book a year. I don't manage nearly that... but I have published slightly too much recently.

I'm so busy writing and editing two books a year that I don't have time for painting anymore.