Jane Lindskold Quotes

I like to sit down every day and not know where the book is going. I have no idea where the book is going to go or how it's going to end as I'm writing it.

I think the most rewarding part for me is kind of not knowing where the story's going next, and then finding out and being blown away by it.

I think there is often a 'what if' proposition that gets me thinking about all my novels.

If I knew a story page by page before I started writing it, I just wouldn't do it. The process of discovery is really important for my own enjoyment.

A writer is always, always searching, even against her will, against all her better instincts, for the thread of a story. Everything is fodder. Everything is fuel. You can feel it coming on like the tingling of a sore throat. The brain never stops struggling to reshape every experience and feeling into a coherent narrative.

My own books drive themselves. I know roughly where a book is going to end, but essentially the story develops under my fingers. It's just a matter of joining the dots.

Writing a novel isn't like building a brick wall. You don't figure out how to do it, and then it gets easier each time because you know what you're doing. With writing a novel, you have to figure it out each time. Each time you start over, you just have the language and the idea and the hope.

When I write a book, I don't have an idea of what I'm doing. I just go where it leads.

For the years I spent working on it, 'Constellation' was the only novel I knew how to write, so maybe I still abided by the maxim? Regardless, I prefer the maxim: Write what you want to know, rather than what you already know.

It is very enjoyable, writing a story. You get this idea. It takes hold of you. And then you spend day and night thinking about how to do it. And then you do it. And much later, you think, 'Oh, yes. That's an interesting question.'

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

The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me.

I always say that, for me, writing a book is like a wacky Greyhound bus trip - I know where I'm starting and where I'll end up, but I have no idea what will happen along the way.

There are a few really fantastic stories left, and that kind of gives you some inspiration to find even new ones.

I know Charlie Kaufman really well, for instance. Charlie Kaufman starts a story, and he has no freaking idea where he's going. None. Zero. And he doesn't want to know, because there's a little bit of death in that.

I prefer to surprise myself as I'm writing. I'm not interested in it if I already know where it's going. So I have only the most general sense of what I'm doing when I start a story. I sometimes have a destination in mind, but how the story is going to go from Point A to Point Z is something I make up as I go along.

I think all writers write from the time they're really young, and you just start asking the question, 'What if?'

It's a discovery of a story when I write a book, a case of inching ahead on each page and discovering what's beyond in the darkness, beyond where you're writing.

In fiction, you have a rough idea what's coming up next - sometimes you even make a little outline - but in fact you don't know. Each day is a whole new - and for me, a very invigorating - experience.

You never know how - or when - the idea for a book will appear.

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.

Choosing to write a play is some kind of surrender. I don't make an outline. I sit and work, and suddenly the door opens, and out it comes.

When a book is going well, it tells you where to go.

Every day I fantasise about situations and little themes I see in front of me that would make a good beginning of a story. But one has to be disciplined and just sit down and do it.

I write simply because I hear voices of people in my head who won't give me peace until I convey their stories to the rest of the world. Seriously. They've always been with me. While other girls played with dolls, and my brothers with Hot Wheels, I was busy traveling through space or traipsing through graveyards with my imaginary playmates.