Jean de la Bruyere Quotes

I have no favourite genre or style but treat each novel with the same care, imagination and craftsmanship. It's as difficult to write a crime or a children's novel with a touch of style and grace as it is a literary novel.

You have to learn how to write each book.

Art, whatever form it takes, requires hard work, craftsmanship and creativity. As a writer, I know my grammar, cadence, the music of prose, and the art of the narrative.

You become a great writer by writing.

I must write the book out in my head now, before I sit down.

I came up with a story and I wrote it.

I just come up with the stories and write them as well as I can. There's not really a great deal of strokey-beard thinking going on.

I've never really thought of writing books. I've never thought about stories as a part of a collection.

I have a lot of books I want to write.

Becoming an author changes your attitude too. Once you see where books come from, and how they're made, they never seem quite as sacred again.

My first job is to write a book that I believe is compelling and deserves the long sustained attention that any novel requires, and to worry about the commerce only late in the game.

Now I'm trying to work outside first person. I do plan to write more books.

Writing a first novel was an arduous crash course. I learned so much in the six years it took me to write it, mostly technical things pertaining to craft.

Oh you know, I've been writing a novel.

Inspiration is easy. The hard part is getting the inspiration onto 300 pages in an interesting, cohesive, easy-to-read but hard-to-forget story.

I'm hoping to get started on a new novel.

I want to write books.

The best way to learn to write is to read in the genre you might be interested in; then, you need to actually sit down and write. In a lot of cases, the first book you write will not get published. Do not get hung up on that. Start a second book.

I would say, number one, don't worry about getting published. Just write. Number two, just write. Three is make sure you read.

When I'm writing, it's about the page. It's not about the movie. It's not about cinema. It's about the literature of me putting my pen to paper and writing a good page and making it work completely as a document unto itself. That's my first artistic contribution. If I do my job right, by the end of the script, I should be having the thought, 'You know, if I were to just publish this now and not make it . . . I'm done.

I want to wake up one morning and know how to write page one, or page 10, or page 250. But I never seem to know how to do it. Every book is different and takes a different structure, style, process, etc. And relearning how to write is where the insanity comes from.

I found some time ago that I have to be careful, while working on a novel, what I read.

I've never actually even contemplated writing a book or having a book.

I'm not sure I have the physical strength to undertake a novel.

I'm working with published authors and some very young undergraduates and lots of people in between. They are lovely people, and they can write.