Claire Tomalin Quotes

I write every day. I'm always in the process of writing my last book, until the next one.

I write every day. I don't have a writing schedule. I write when I feel like it. Fortunately, I feel like it all the time. I am writing for hours. I do like to write in the morning. I start after breakfast, like 9 o'clock, and I'll write till lunch, about 1. And after lunch, I just have fun.

I write about five thousand words a day, when working on a book, about three thousand a day if I'm writing a short story. I take long periods off between projects, when I read a lot, garden, and think about the next book or stories.

I tend to write in the mornings.

I am a morning writer; I am writing at eight-thirty in longhand and I keep at it until twelve-thirty, when I go for a swim. Then I come back, have lunch, and read in the afternoon until I take my walk for the next day's writing.

I write books back to back, and I work very hard on them.

I really try to write every day. It's hard, but it's my favorite thing to do, so it's usually not too, too hard.

I like writing. I get cranky when I can't. Yes, I write books back to back, and I work very hard on them.

I'm not a compulsive writer. I wish I could be compulsive about something. I have no regular writing routine.

I write in the mornings. During my down time.

Ah, typical writing day? Well, I tend to do e-mail and the business stuff of writing more in the morning while my brain wakes up and then write more in the afternoon, sometimes from about 11 until 5, or 12 until 5. If a story is driving me nuts, I'll work more in the evenings, but usually I try not to do that. That's family time.

I'm not the most talented writer in the world. I know that. But I also know that I'm disciplined, that I work my butt off, and that I make myself write as much as I can. Writer's block is a luxury I can't afford. I'm a professional writer, which means that I put my butt in the chair each day, and I write. Simple as that.

I just write from dawn to dusk.

People imagine that there are rituals, like lighting candles or sacrificing chickens. They really just want to know what the magic formula is for writing. I inevitably disappoint them by saying you just put your butt in the chair, and you write 500 words a day, and then you get up and repeat it the next morning.

I used to get up and write every day, even if I wasn't working on a specific thing. Now, when I have a thing I'm in the middle of, I do that, but when I'm not, time can go by when I'm not writing at all.

People always ask, 'How do you write so many books?' And I say, I work a lot. I work six or seven days a week.

Every spare second I would write, somehow. On my lunch hour, too.

Capote wrote every day. He said that's the only way, you have to sit down every day and do it.

I write a thousand words a day.

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.

The only strategy I know of is to write every day, which I don't always do, because sometimes I just can't, for various reasons that seem out of my control.

My only ritual is to just sit down and write, write every day.

Some people take 10 years to write a book and some can do one in under a year.

I start writing at 7.30 A.M. and write till noon. I've never written a single word after 5.00 P.M.

I write every day.