Geraldine Brooks Quotes

I pretty much live about 10 minutes from my office. I have two kids, and I have about 8 projects that I'm working on, so I basically just get up and go to work, and go home every night and play with my kids, so I don't really know.

Every morning, I go off to a small studio behind my house to write. I try to ignore all email and phone calls until lunchtime. Then I launch into the sometimes frantic busy-ness of a tightly scheduled day.

I get up around 8 o'clock, which gives me enough time to walk dogs and feed chickens and horses. Then I get to work in my home office upstairs, and basically, I don't stop until I've written 2,000 words and/or the Stephen Colbert show is over.

A good day to me is writing from 6 A.M. 'til noon with a break to take my daughter to school. After lunch, if I still feel the momentum, I'll hit it again.

At home, I'm lucky if I can write three or four hours before the phone starts ringing and the kids want to go to soccer.

I drop my kid off at school and then race home, and it's a very limited time. I can only do really serious writing for a couple of hours. And then I always go on a walk, I do a one-to-two-hour walk; I don't go running or hard hiking.

When the children were little, I'd fly into L.A. for a specific work project, but then I'd leave again, and when I was home, I wouldn't even read a script.

I don't really have special rituals, but I don't try to write fiction unless I have a minimum of a few hours. For me, it takes a while to settle into a mode where I'm truly concentrating.

I have a husband and two kids, and they're usually around when I'm shooting, then I go home. We have dinner, and that's what I'm dealing with when I go home.

Everyting starts to happen at my home at 7 A. M., 7:20, when you hear the orange juicer. That means my daughters are already making the fresh Clementine juice.

But usually I'll wake up and start writing about nine o'clock. I'll probably write for about three hours, and I'll do that over the next month and a half.

After filming I like to go home and lie down with my daughter and have a glass of wine so I don't really socialize with the other actors.

I'm very lucky. I am one of those people who is able to go home, shut the front door and completely focus on the kids.

A work-only zone does wonders for your productivity. So, I prefer working at the office now. I spend 8 focused hours there, then I go home to be present with my family.

When you're working from home and you've got children, a big night out is going to Pizza Express down the road.

I need to stop carving out four-hour chunks to do random things and go home and watch my children grow up.

For the first-time novelist you've got to get up at 5:30 in the morning and write until 7, make breakfast and go to work. Or, come home and work for an hour. Everybody has an hour in their day somewhere.

I get into the office about 7 A.M., then I usually get out of the office a little after 7 P.M. I get home, I have dinner, then I spend a couple hours with my girls. I'm in bed about 9 P.M. That's the program!

When all my kids were at home, I used to write from midnight onwards.

I can write pretty much anywhere if you give me time and some quiet. The home is not usually the best place because I have four children. It's usually pandemonium around here!

I'm always up at 7:30, usually earlier. Having three kids will do that.

I don't have a life, really. I take my kids to school, and I go home, and I write. Then I go pick my kids up, make them dinner, put them to bed, and write some more.

I like to write in the mornings, so I try to protect 9 A.M. - 12 P.M. for me. I can drop our older two kids at school then write for a few hours.

I just start my day really early. Everything happens in the morning time. Writing. Just everything. I can't - I don't know how to work late.

Reviewing good puzzle books is frustrating, because you get to page one of the introduction, find a curious puzzle, become engrossed for 20 minutes, miss your stop and then fail to get home in time to say goodnight to the kids.