Nicholas Jarecki Quotes

Anybody could write a bad script, and I'm one of them, you know?

I can't remember what my first script was.

My writing is progressing slowly, but at least it's moving forward. I'm sure that's the case. The only problem is that I'm never absolutely certain that what I've written is any good.

You write a scene, and it works or it doesn't. It's immediate.

There's no such thing as easy, but it's easier when a script is good.

Because I work in television, I always knew that I loved working with writers. It's very collaborative. You're always in a room full of writers.

Having reached the halfway mark in the alphabet, my prime focus is on writing each new book as well as I can.

It may take hundreds of pages before you begin to get a handle on the craft of writing, and your first scripts may not work. The next five to twenty may not either. However, the ones that do work owe everything to the ones that didn't.

These things are hard to pin down. We work on a script a bit, then work on a different one.

When I'm writing a first draft of a script, I can disappear into that for two, three months exclusively.

I like having an idea, or hearing an idea, and getting it into a proper script.

I enjoy it too much - even if I knew I'd never get a book published, I would still write. I enjoy the experience of getting thoughts and ideas and plots and characters organised into this narrative framework.

I think writers are observers and watchers. We always have our ears open and eyes open, so I might see something in everyday life that inspires me. And I think that's probably more than anything else. Everyday life is where I get my inspiration.

I eventually want to do writing on all the films, but not necessarily to be the writer. Writing is a painful, painful thing; it really is.

Fortunately, John Houseman is a marvelous writer and he sat in on so many story conferences. He worked with Welles, you know, and he's a marvelous man.

I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.

At a certain point my novels set. They set just as hard as that jam jar. And then I know they are finished.

I have great editors, and I always have. Somehow, great editors ask the right questions or pose things to you that get you to write better. It's a dance between you, your characters, and your editor.

There are many challenges I face while working on a book. Working within deadlines and schedules is certainly one of the bigger ones for me. I want to create the best possible book I can for my readers with words and pictures - and that takes time to get it just right.

If I write scripts that nobody likes, I don't think we'll be doing 'True Detective.'

Some stories or passages are more difficult and demand more fussing with than others, but, in general, I'm a two-draft writer rather than a six-draft writer, or whatever.

I'm not famous for my back story investigations; I'm lucky that I work with good writers and it's usually in the script.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.

I think the community that's created within a writers' room is a very interesting topic.

Unfortunately, there's still a lot of beginning writers who think you can just write your first draft and hand it in.