Diana Gabaldon Quotes

'Goon Squad' took about three years to write and that's the short end. My second novel, 'Look at Me,' took six years.

Writing takes a lot of patience. It usually takes me a year to write a book. One time, it took me 14 years to write a book, not that I worked on it every day.

Listen, I wrote 10 unsuccessful books before I broke through, so I'm looking all the time to keep my books fascinating. I want to write what people want to read, not push any message.

I used to think that when I finished a book, I was finished with it. But it's like a wonderful Hydra. Every time a head disappears, more heads appear, so I will be writing for the rest of my life. The more books I write, the more books I find that I still have to write about. I use it like an inspiration, and that's wonderful.

I'm remembering one book that I wrote, 'Fourth Grade Rats,' that took a month to write, but most of them, full-length novels, I would say about a year.

You write, hoping to write a good book; that's it.

I don't think many of us launched ourselves into the world of writing books fully formed.

I think 'Hollow City' only took a year and a half to write... but it felt like two and a half!

In a way, I started 'Goon Squad' not even realizing I was writing a book. I thought I was just writing a few stories to stall before starting this other book that I wanted to write - or thought I wanted to write: I still haven't written it.

'I Drink' took me two years to write.

If you think about writing a book, or when I did, it seems daunting, but when I began writing, it just started flowing.

When I was writing 'The Windup Girl' and 'Ship Breaker,' I was writing those simultaneously, so I was an unpublished writer, not really having that full sense that these books would go out in the world, that they would be successful, that there would be an audience and that there would be fans of those stories.

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

I can write a book in probably three months.

I feel like writing a book there's always a version in your head that's an amazing version, but then you write the version that you can write.

Usually after finishing a novel, I have a head full of bad ideas for the next one.

Writing a book is a long and difficult process for me. I'm a slow writer, so I spend the year with Elvis Cole and Joe Pike in my head. I was thinking about this the other day. I wrote the first book in 1987. Literally every day since that time, Elvis and Joe have been in my head. They're always there. I started these guys because I like them.

I loved writing 'Two Brothers' more than anything else I have written. It's the first book I've written that I've always known I wanted to write. Having said that, it also kept me awake at nights.

The story grew, got way bigger than the contest rules called for, and next thing I knew I had a book.

Any writer worth the name is always getting into one thing or getting out of another thing.

I was very fortunate that my first novel captivated the imaginations of so many readers who asked for a sequel. After that, one book led to another as I discovered other facets to my characters I wanted to investigate further.

What's funny about that is when I was writing Twilight just for myself and not thinking of it as a book, I was not thinking about publishing, and yet at the same time I was casting it in my head. Because when I read books, I see them very visually.

We don't have to think up a title till we get the doggone book written.

For the novels I wrote before selling anything, I didn't outline much. I had a vague idea of the story.

I think I settled on the title before I ever wrote the book.