Ayobami Adebayo Quotes

Most of my books begin with a nap on my couch here, when I dream up characters and story lines, and then I write on my laptop in the recliner and handle the business side of email at my desk, which is sagging in the middle - maybe from so many words?

I sit down at my desk pretty early in the morning and write all day until about 4 or 5 p.m.

Melville locked himself away in his room for months while working on 'Moby Dick.' If I ever decide to write a novel, I hope someone will take pity on me and take me out to dinner instead.

I write in the mornings once the kids have gone to school, taking my laptop and a coffee to a little writer's room in town where I plant noise-cancelling headphones on my head and get to work.

During the day, if I don't have any other commitments, I'm usually at my desk writing, revising, or researching anywhere from four to six hours.

I used to get up and write every day, even if I wasn't working on a specific thing. Now, when I have a thing I'm in the middle of, I do that, but when I'm not, time can go by when I'm not writing at all.

If I took my characters home with me, half of my life would be a misery, I think. No, I tend to compartmentalize work from my life. I'm not terribly method.

I've always prided myself on my discipline as a writer. I do it like a job. I get up in the morning and go to my desk.

For a writer it's a dream to sit and watch people as close as possible.

I'm not a believer that you have to write every day. If I felt industrious, I'd spend ten hours a week writing. The writing is going on all the time in my head; the trick is to capture it. Showers are great. Traffic jams are great.

I can't write every day. I have to skip a day in between. If I try to do it every day, nothing comes.

Don't force yourself to write. Some people can write a novel in a few months, whereas for others it can take over a year. I'm lucky to be one of the former - but, even so, if I'm not in the mood to write, I won't. I'll go off, do something else and come back to it when I'm ready.

I'm not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning, put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I've never understood.

When you're a writer, everything that interests you feeds into your work.

I try to write in the mornings, as soon as I'm up and caffeinated, and to stay in the chair as long as I can be productive.

If you're a writer, you know that the stories don't come to you - you have to go looking for them. The old men in the lobby: that's where the stories were.

I'm a morning person because I learned to write my novels while still practicing law. I would get to the office at 6:30 a.m. and write until other people arrived, around 9. Now I still do that. I start at 6:30 or 7, and I'll write until 11, then take an hour off, then work until about 2 p.m. By then my brain has had enough.

I work in a room overlooking the river. I try to get to my desk as soon as I've fed my cats and chickens. I use a blue 3B pencil and scribble away for about 20 pages before transferring it to the computer.

Two days a week, I go to my office at The Grotto, a writer's collective in San Francisco. I get there at 8:15 and write until around 1 or 2 P.M.

I've become a day writer: most people start as night writers, and I used to be, but something happened to my endocrine system. I do miss the 3 A.M. writing jags.

That's a really good question - what is it like living with a writer? I guess it depends on the writer. You know what? They live in a fantasy world a lot of the time. My husband lives in a fantasy world.

There are so many ideas that you just come up with on a day-to-day basis when you're a writer that it's very difficult to want to go back to an old fling, so to speak.

When I'm working on a novel, I generally do write every day, but in between those marathons, I take breaks. My brain needs time to recharge.

I wake up with the story in my head, so I really like to be at my desk about five minutes after I wake up. So I don't get dressed. I put on a bathrobe, I make tea and sit at my desk.

I do not go down and sit in front of the computer and make myself write; that's not my style.