Jonathan Dee Quotes

I'll write maybe one long paragraph describing the events, then a page or two breaking the events into chapters, and then reams of pages delving into my characters. After that, I'm ready to begin.

I want to wake up one morning and know how to write page one, or page 10, or page 250. But I never seem to know how to do it. Every book is different and takes a different structure, style, process, etc. And relearning how to write is where the insanity comes from.

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.

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

I started writing novels by not thinking about actually writing a whole novel - that felt altogether too daunting. I thought out a rough idea, then wrote chapter by chapter, and then by the time I'd hit 40,000 words, it was a challenge just to see if I could get to the end.

In the writing of novels, there is the problem of how to shape a narrative.

Anybody can do research. The plotting of the novel, writing the ending before you write anything else, which I always do - I don't know that everybody can do that. That's the hard part.

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.

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

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

The unfolding of a story is both as exciting and as difficult for each and every novel I've written, regardless of time and place.

But at the same time, I have trouble keeping things out of books, which is why I don't write short stories because they turn into novels.

It would not be amiss for the novice to write the last paragraph of his story first, once a synopsis of the plot has been carefully prepared - as it always should be.

I make extensive outlines before I write a book. I usually know what will happen. I know the characters, and I know what they are about.

I've never made an outline for any novel that I've written. Never.

The older I get and the more fiction I write, the more I outline, the more I think about plot before I dive in and plunge too far.

The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes.

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

I'm not sure I have the physical strength to undertake a novel.

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.

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.

Every book is like starting over again. I've written books every way possible - from using tight outlines to writing from the seat of my pants. Both ways work.

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.

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.