Bob Shacochis Quotes

The basic challenge of any book is you know you're going to be working on it for three or four years or more. So you want to have a subject that will keep you engaged.

I liked the idea of being a writer more than I liked the idea of writing.

Writing itself is a dream. There are days of self doubt and deadlines and wondering how you're going to pay the bills until you write that bestseller. But it's still the best job I've ever had. I've also been able to help a lot of people and even inspire a few and that feels great.

The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me.

I am a writer - that is what I am before being a performer or musician. I love waking up in the morning and then going to sleep that night with something that did not exist.

I was about 28-29 when I wrote my first story, and that was called 'The Garden of Abdul Gasazi.'

Before Arthur, I'd dismissed altogether writing fiction. You only have so many semi-sharp arrows in your quiver, I'd told myself, and I was not going to be able to write a novel.

I never know as a writer when I set out into a novel where it's going to take me.

I've lost much of my heart and the spark or fire that once 'created,' or produced, the art of fiction.

The good thing about writing a novel is that you're creating an imaginary world and can take a break when you need to.

I've basically thought of myself as a writer, whether I was or not.

For me, writing is like being taken on a walk by a footnote: It's amazing where you end up.

That's the great thing about being a writer. You dream up amazing questions... and then dream up even more amazing answers.

I started a novel in the back of a notebook, and it was great because it looked like I was taking notes. And I just, I kept it up, it was sort of fantasy, it was part soap opera. It was utterly dreadful, but that's how I got hooked.

Today I began the novel that I determined to be great.

I love the secrecy of writing fiction. When I write a novel, I don't tell anybody what I'm doing. I'm living in my private world. And it's a great sensation.

For me, writing essays, prose and fiction is a great way to be self-indulgent.

The most amazing gift about being a novelist is that you get to pursue your curiosity every day.

Writing my own stories had always been one of my dreams, but I didn't start until I was 29. I was working in a book warehouse and was assigned to the third floor where all the children's books were. For four and a half years, I spent all day, every day around children's books, and it wasn't long before I fell in love with them.

My own accumulation of influences is actually what made me a writer in the first place.

When I was 19, I wrote a novel, which was not very good, but I finished it.

For the last few years, I've enjoyed writing my own stuff since studying creative writing at school, and as I've grown up, I've realised how much I enjoy escaping into a world that I've created myself. So I've kept that up as a hobby.

I've been writing since I was 12 years old.

In terms of moments that pushed me toward becoming a writer... My parents, my wife, and my English teacher in the 8th grade were all hugely supportive at moments during my development as a writer that were critical, where I might have quit when things got too hard.

I do not believe that with a fictional character you can force yourself too far away from yourself. There has to be some of you in it.