Irvine Welsh Quotes

Usually after finishing a novel, I have a head full of bad ideas for the next one.

Deciding to write a novel about something - as opposed to finding you are writing a novel around something - sounds to me like a good evocation of writer's block.

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.

I always have a story in my head that needs to be written, or at least I think I do. But I usually can't find the time to write it.

I'm always writing. There is always a story brewing in my head.

I have two ideas for novels at the moment, neither of them all that conventional, but I'm not ready to choose between them yet, let alone settle down to the process of writing.

Rarely does a complete idea come to me. I basically start with just a small scene or a snatch of dialogue and force myself to write and to keep writing. Sometimes it becomes a book.

For someone who wants to write a story, they should go on thinking about the story. When it comes up to a level, where it has reached your neck that's when you should go about writing it.

I know some writers that have a million novel ideas, but I don't.

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.

My stories run up and bite me on the leg - I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

If you're a writer, the insight of other writers - if there's some kind of Holy Grail message on how to deal with writer's block or how to deal with any problem that can come up - whether you're writing about yourself or a group of people, I find that very interesting.

I have a bad tendency to get rapidly bored with my own material, so rewriting is hard for me. I mean, I already know the story and would rather read something new.

We had to do the same thing here. To top that sequel was quite a task. Mike had a couple of good conceptual humour and character ideas, which got me back into it.

And once I know what the first page is, then the rest will come.

Many people think that it is important to have a title before you begin writing the book, but I think you should never sit around waiting for the right title to strike before you start writing. Crack on with the story, put in the hard work, and the title will come eventually.

I'm not one of these 'the characters write themselves; the story just fell out of me' kind of writers. Wish it was like that.

I write in a very peculiar way. I think about a book for 25 or 30 years in a kind of inchoate way, and at one point or another, I realize the book is ready to be written. I usually have a character, a first line, and general idea of what the book is going to be about.

I might be into writing... I'd like to try it someday. I always come up with some good ideas.

Struggling writers are often advised to pick a simple genre, but it doesn't work that way.

I start with an idea that is no more than a paragraph long, and expand it slowly into an outline. But I'm always surprised by the directions things take when I actually start writing.

I really don't know what I am going to do in terms of what a book is going to be about until I actually start writing it!

If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.

From the beginning, when I first got an idea for a story and wondered if I could write it, it has always been the story that has driven me.

My favourite part of writing a book is thinking up the ideas, and that can start a long time before I actually sit down at my desk.