Stewart O'Nan Quotes

On the whole, anything that gets you writing and keeps you writing is a good thing. Anything that stops you writing is a bad thing.

There's no writer's block; there's only distraction.

I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer's block, oh, I have to wait for my muse. I don't. Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done.

A journalist also needs to be disciplined, and so do I. I am, essentially, lazy. Without discipline I'd be just a mass of gummy bears on the sofa instead of on book tour with my eighth novel.

I've always got a novel under way, but if I try to work on it every day, exclusively, I falter. So I always keep more than one thing going.

I don't believe in writer's block. Think about it - when you were blocked in college and had to write a paper, didn't it always manage to fix itself the night before the paper was due? Writer's block is having too much time on your hands.

It is actually a lot harder to sit down and write from A to Z. But for me at least, it's the only way I can do it, at this point, with any moderate success.

I don't remember ever having writer's block. If I sit in there for four hours, I'll usually have something.

A manuscript under way always gave me something to do; only while enduring the aimlessness between books was I truly glum.

It's hard to tell if I've had writer's block because it seems to me that it's when nothing comes, but, you know, every day you stare at that computer screen, and I think, 'It's never going to happen today. How can I write three pages?' And the hours pass, and they haven't shown up, and then at the very end it always happens, so it's willpower.

If you want to be a writer, I have two pieces of advice. One is to be a reader. I think that's one of the most important parts of learning to write. The other piece of advice is 'Just do it!' Don't think about it, don't agonize, sit down and write.

When the writing is going well, I'm obsessive. I don't shower, I don't take phone calls, I hardly respond to text messages, I don't do email. I take breaks only to read, and usually I read poetry. When it's not going well, I just lie in bed and eat chocolate.

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again.

What do I do when writing isn't going well? Well, I don't write - which is symptom, cure, and cause. And then sometimes I just tell myself, as I'm writing, "I'll fix it later." And sometimes it's true, I do.

Finish the day's writing when you still want to continue.

Had I mentioned to someone around 1795 that I planned to write, anyone with any sense would have told me to write for two hours every day, with or without inspiration. Their advice would have enabled me to benefit from the ten years of my life I totally wasted waiting for inspiration.

Writing is hard work, and fun, and requires you to keep your backside in a chair when you would sometimes like to put it elsewhere. So the only wisdom is the advice to keep at it, I guess.

A novel is like an animal you have to hunt down and kill. If you let it sit for two days, it's got a two-day head start. So, if I just look at it every day, I'm so much better off.

Better to write twaddle, anything, than nothing at all.

In order to write a book, it is necessary to sit down (or stand up) and write. Therein lies the difficulty.

We have this idea that we need to be in the mood to write. We don't.

The secret to writing is writing. Lots of people I know talk about writing. They will tell me about the book they are going to write, or are thinking about writing, or may write some day in the future. And I know they will never do it. If someone is serious about writing, then they will sit down every day and put some words down on paper.

The biggest pitfall to avoid is not writing. Not writing is really, really easy to do, especially if you're a young writer. The hope that elves will come in the night and finish it for you, is a very common one to have. That is my main recommendation - you have to write, and you have to finish what you write and beyond that, it's all detail.

When I am writing, I try to do it five hours a day but I spend about two of those just fooling around.

The first two, three, four weeks are wasted. I just show up in front of the computer. Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too. If she doesn't show up invited, eventually she just shows up.