Alison McGhee Quotes

We had so much fun together as friends that I suggested we [with Kate DiCamillo] write a book together.

I write by myself initially. That's the way I've always written, just working on pure thought by myself. Then I bring it to the table with whoever I'm collaborating with.

Writing with a partner is, in some ways, an easy but odd process. Two people come into a room and look to each other for motivation. One might not be in the right mood at any given moment. And somehow, you begin; somehow, out of your exchange of thoughts, something engages both of you, and the process of collaboration begins.

With writing, I prefer the solo effort, but when a team is working right, as it did on 'The Grifters,' boy, it's exhilarating.

There's a fairy story called the 'The Shoemaker and the Elves' where this old cobbler keeps leaving leather out overnight and wakes up the next day, and there's a new pair of shoes. Co-authoring is a little like that. You send off the manuscript to your partner, and a few days later, you check your email, and hey, there's more book in here!

I never thought that it would take me so long to do something. I thought everything was temporary and sometimes the best thing you have working in your favor is a bad sense of time. In order to sit down and write a book that takes six years you have to have a screwed up sense of time because that's too daunting. No one is going to pick up a pen and a piece of paper and say, "Okay, six years, here we go."

I rarely write by myself.

I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as a dying friend. I hold its hand and hope it will get better.

We were 15 minutes into it and nothing was happening; I thought, well, that's not going to work. Then all of a sudden everything clicked. I don't know how long it took us, but I would just show up at Alison's [McGhee] office. She would type and we'd just kick it back and forth. Writing is so scary for me, such a lonely endeavor, and it became a wonderful thing to show up and have somebody else go through it with me. It was actually a wonderful experience.

You know, it's hard work to write a book. I can't tell you how many times I really get going on an idea, then my quill breaks. Or I spill ink all over my writing tunic.

It is no fun at all to have been writing a book for seven or so years, especially when you've never published anything before.

There are stages in bread-making quite similar to the stages of writing. You begin with something shapeless, which sticks to your fingers, a kind of paste. Gradually that paste becomes more and more firm. Then there comes a point when it turns rubbery. Finally, you sense that the yeast has begun to do its work: the dough is alive. Then all you have to do is let it rest. But in the case of a book the work may take ten years.

The two things I enjoy the most about writing are the first page of a book and the last. What's in between is very hard work.

'Goon Squad' took about three years to write and that's the short end. My second novel, 'Look at Me,' took six years.

I think getting the rest of the guys in the band to write is important.

The most fun I ever have is sitting in with Rick writing, and we laugh at our own jokes.

For me, writing a novel goes on for years, and the solitude goes on, too. It tends to swallow me at times. I know it's a problem when my husband sends the dog in to retrieve me.

When I started writing it was kind of hard getting people to do my stuff. They' say they couldn't do my style.

I've done well because I'm lucky and I'm willing to be collaborative with the one thing you don't want to be collaborative with: your writing.

I really like writing television, and I like the collaborative writers room feeling. It's ten people, and you're together every day laughing your heads off.

When you're writing, you're on your own, and I like to work as a team.

When you're writing you're constantly fighting demons to sit down and do what you do. If you listen to the voices outside your head, in addition to the ones inside your head, you'll never get anything done. There's enough inner strife.

With each book you write you have to learn how to write that book - so every time, you have to start all over again.

The problem with books, now that I've written one, is that the idea of adaptation is so much easier than sitting down to write something new.

Anyway, he and I worked on the script together, and I must say he was a joy to work with. Very enthusiastic.