Zadie Smith Quotes

I'm not the most talented writer in the world. I know that. But I also know that I'm disciplined, that I work my butt off, and that I make myself write as much as I can. Writer's block is a luxury I can't afford. I'm a professional writer, which means that I put my butt in the chair each day, and I write. Simple as that.

The hardest part is making the time to write. Not finding the time to write, mind you. Making.

I used to get up and write every day, even if I wasn't working on a specific thing. Now, when I have a thing I'm in the middle of, I do that, but when I'm not, time can go by when I'm not writing at all.

I write every day. I don't have a writing schedule. I write when I feel like it. Fortunately, I feel like it all the time. I am writing for hours. I do like to write in the morning. I start after breakfast, like 9 o'clock, and I'll write till lunch, about 1. And after lunch, I just have fun.

I do not write by any set time schedule. I realize there are many writers who follow a daily regime where they arise at 6:00 a.m., do some sort of exercise, eat breakfast and then sit down and produce words for a three to four hour period.

I'm not a disciplined writer.

I'm a person who, when I set out to write, I write. It's just like when you set out to eat, you eat, or when you set out to sleep, you sleep. I don't do somersaults to write something. I just do it.

I just write from dawn to dusk.

People imagine that there are rituals, like lighting candles or sacrificing chickens. They really just want to know what the magic formula is for writing. I inevitably disappoint them by saying you just put your butt in the chair, and you write 500 words a day, and then you get up and repeat it the next morning.

People always ask, 'How do you write so many books?' And I say, I work a lot. I work six or seven days a week.

For me, writing is 75 percent procrastinating and 25 percent actually sitting down and working.

For any writers at all, read everything you can and then put your butt in the chair and write. That's all there is to it.

You don't find time to write. You make time. It's my job.

Writing - not being a writer with interesting habits - gets priority.

I write about five thousand words a day, when working on a book, about three thousand a day if I'm writing a short story. I take long periods off between projects, when I read a lot, garden, and think about the next book or stories.

I like writing. I get cranky when I can't. Yes, I write books back to back, and I work very hard on them.

Don't force yourself to write. Some people can write a novel in a few months, whereas for others it can take over a year. I'm lucky to be one of the former - but, even so, if I'm not in the mood to write, I won't. I'll go off, do something else and come back to it when I'm ready.

Many writers who choose to be active in the world lose not virtue but time, and that stillness without which literature cannot be made.

I'm not a compulsive writer. I wish I could be compulsive about something. I have no regular writing routine.

I spend most of every day writing. I like to write every day if I can. I don't start extremely early.

When I am occupied with a work that requires continuity - a novel, for example - I write every day.

I start writing at 7.30 A.M. and write till noon. I've never written a single word after 5.00 P.M.

I try to sit down at the typewriter four times a day, even if it's only five minutes, and write three sentences.

For the first-time novelist you've got to get up at 5:30 in the morning and write until 7, make breakfast and go to work. Or, come home and work for an hour. Everybody has an hour in their day somewhere.

I don't really get into a writing routine until March or April, when I'll write a few hundred words a day, often in a cafe in the morning after the school run.