Sam Dew Quotes

I try not to think too much about an audience when I'm writing the first draft of a book - at that stage, the prospect of anyone reading what I've written would be enough to scare me into setting my laptop on fire.

Every word I write I suspect the next day.

With the first novel, I had to tell myself, 'No one is ever going to read it, so you might as well just write it.' With the second, I was pretty sure someone was going to read it.

Every writer knows that unless you were born gifted with either supreme confidence or outsize ego, handing in your work holds, in some cases, admitted terror. If that's too strong, at least fairly high anxiety.

When it comes time to sit down and write the next book, you're deathly afraid that you're not up to the task. That was certainly the case with me after Snow Falling on Cedars.

I've tried writing. Two days later I'd go visit it and say, Jesus Christ, who wrote this crap?

I find writing extremely difficult. I usually have to drag myself to my desk, mainly because I doubt myself. And it's getting harder because I want to improve with every book.

I don't write well when I'm sitting there sweating about every single phrase.

One of the big breakthroughs I had as a writer was when I stopped agonising over every word.

But if I worried too much about publishers' expectations, I'd probably paralyze myself and not be able to write anything.

I once read Updike after writing a first draft, and I wanted to put my own book on the fire. I've since learned to read utter crap while I'm writing: pulp is the thing.

You go from these high hopes when you're writing to just a desperate want of not making a complete fool of yourself by the end of it.

The experienced writer says to the anguished novice: 'Just do it; get something, anything, on to the screen or page, just establish a flow of words, and criticise them later.' You give this advice but can't always take it.

If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.

I'm fairly competant as a director and actor, but I am Mr. Neurotic as a writer. I just don't have enough confidence in my abilities to take criticism well. I take it personally. Start with 'It's a masterpiece,' and then tell me what you think could be changed.

Fear is the major cargo that American writers must stow away when the writing life calls them into carefully chosen ranks.

Once in a while, when I first started to write pieces, I would try to write to a reader other than myself. I always failed. I would freeze up.

I, for one, find writing excruciating. Some mornings, as I'm on my way to my desk, my hands actually tremble with fear. The fear, of course, is that I'll sit down at the desk and discover that what I've written is claptrap. Fear inevitably leads to procrastination.

My verses stand gawping a bit. I never get used to this. They've lived here long enough.

If you're a writer, you're constantly doubting yourself.

There was a terrible fear for me when I started writing, which was that if you'd been denied unbelievably tumultuous experience, you didn't have permission to write.

I've got to overcome that tendency to hide what I write or throw it away.

I think we're so often, as writers, afraid of writing something that is less than perfect, and that fear paralyzes us. I'm a big fan of writing less than perfect things.

I think I'm a good joke writer. I'm also very scared that the last joke I wrote is the last joke I'll ever write.

Until a book starts forming in your head, you always wonder, 'Am I going to be able to do this again?'