Lennie James Quotes

Doing interesting things and then writing about them is the best way to become a good writer.

I've been writing fiction probably since I was about 6 years old, so it's something that is second nature to me now. I just sit down and start writing. I don't sit down and start writing and it comes out perfectly - it's a process.

I never thought I was very good at developing material. I grew up at the BBC where they sent you scripts.

Like most art forms, writing is part instinct and part craft. The craft part is the part that can be taught, and that can make a crucial difference to lots of writers.

Good writing of course requires talent, and no one can teach you to have talent.

The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea.

I am not much of a researcher as a novelist; I write mainly from experience.

Most people won't realize that writing is a craft. You have to take your apprenticeship in it like anything else.

Give me good writing, and I'll play it all day.

I really wasn't equipped to be a writer when I left Oxford. But then I set out to learn. I've always had the highest regard for the craft. I've always felt it was work.

I like writing my own material - I'm pretty good at it.

The same tools that make any writer good, plus a cheerful willingness to suspend belief.

I'm afraid there are no magical tips. There is no secret. Writing is all about telling stories as well as you can.

I've been writing for a long time.

I'm finding writing very fascinating.

The old handbook on writing is 'Write what you know.' I come from an autobiographical starting place almost all of the time, but it would be a mistake to presume that I'm not using fiction to extend the narrative.

If you want to be a good writer, be the best writer in the world. That's what I've done.

I knew I would read all kinds of books and try to get at what it is that makes good writers good. But I made no promises that I would write books a lot of people would like to read.

I think writing well takes a little bit of talent and an awful lot of work.

I think you have to learn for yourself how to write. I'm slightly mystified by creative writing courses - God love them - because I can't understand how you can explain a process that I find so baffling.

Writing a novel - unlike operating a piece of heavy machinery, say, or cooking a chicken - is not a skill that can be taught. There is no standard way of doing it, just as there is no means of telling, while you're doing it, whether you're doing it well or badly. And merely because you've done it well once doesn't mean you can do it well again.

All experience helps when you write.

The best writers who have put pen to paper have often had a journalism background.

Neophyte writers tend to believe that there is something magical about ideas and that if they can just get a hold of a good one, then their futures are ensured.

A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.