Jandy Nelson Quotes

There's nothing worse than sitting down to write a novel and saying, 'Well, okay, I'm going to do something of high artistic worth.'

I made a very conscious effort to finish 'The Cypress House' before 'So Cold the River' launched, because I thought that would help build a buffer between my writing and any impact that came from either the success or the failure of that first book.

I don't like downtime, and I just am too insecure that I'll not work again if I don't start the ball rolling on the next round of things. Everything takes so long to make and come to fruition.

I feel like once I say out loud, to the public, what I'm working on, it's never going to be an actual book. So until it's close to done, I keep pretty quiet about my next stuff!

'Library of Souls' is longer than 'Hollow City' by a considerable margin, but this time I was on the right track from the beginning, so I never had to start over. It took about 15 months, all told.

There is a lot of pressure to top yourself... to come up with a 'Rumours II,' and that seemed like a trap.

I haven't read a book in a very, very long time because, when I'm writing, I don't like to see other people's work. I don't want to see something great and not be able to use it, and I don't want to have any subconscious influences.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that writing is mysterious; you don't ever truly know where it is coming from, so don't edit yourself line by line. Don't get in your own way. Whatever is truly there at the core, that is your voice.

I started writing 'The Lobster Kings' the day after I sold my first novel, 'Touch.'

When I started working on 'Stay With Me,' I thought it would take two years to complete the novel.

Guillermo del Toro is able to invent his worlds. I would find the pressure of having to invent crippling.

What I like about writing novels is that I'm in my own world for nine months.

Success can be destructive to the creative process. I say it all the time: success is as dangerous as total failure.

With my own stuff, I've always held to the belief that it should take as long as it takes until it feels right.

When you write your first book, you're writing in a vacuum; it doesn't matter how much time it takes. And then with the second book, you're on contract, and you have deadlines, and it's a little bit tougher. And also the expectations. You don't want to let your characters down.

I have a horror of going down dead ends, which you can easily do with a novel, spending months on it and then realising that it's all wrong. It's demoralising, because you don't get the time back.

I'm not gonna ever announce that I'm going to do an album again. Waking up with that on your head almost doesn't allow you to make the best album you can.

I didn't feel like I was allowed to be a songwriter. I thought I had to be a really intelligent lyricist, like a poet.

Of course I knew that writing was terrifically hard work and that there was no secret code, as in a video game, that would unlock Tolstoy-mode, enabling me to crank out canon-worthy novellas before lunch.

I found the success of 'In a Dark, Dark Wood' really distracting when I was writing 'The Woman in Cabin 10,' but in a way, the fact that 'Cabin 10' was doing well felt quite freeing while I was writing 'The Lying Game.'

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.

I once, when I was in the middle of making the move from Europe to the U.S., I started trying to put 'Them' and 'Conspiracy' into a novel. I got into three chapters in, and those who've seen that little bit said I really need to finish it, but time is an issue.

With a series, keeping the quality high and writing incredibly fast, that's the first lesson you learn. You can't be real precious. When you're doing a feature film, you have 2 1/2 months; you sort of take your time. It's a different animal.

Expectations are kind of lethal for art, I think.

I really want to write another novel, and I am trying to come up with what the story will be. As I learned with 'Groundswell,' I can't force it; I just have to wait for it to come to me.