Lauren Groff Quotes

A journal is a very personal thing. As far as possible, to write this sort of book you need to know and feel your character as a person and then put yourself into that person's mind, place and time. Trying to stay in that person, place and time is a challenge when surrounded by this very different world of the 21st century.

You can over complicate everything with techniques; when you're in the moment, you have to feel that you are that character, that you're feeling the pain or the happiness or whatever it is that they're feeling in that moment. Usually the authenticity will manifest itself.

There's a kind of acting that goes on in my head when I'm writing a character where I put myself in their place.

A lot of readers ask me, "Do you ever get emotional while writing the book?" or "Did you cry when you killed this character?" And the truth is, no, I didn't. That's not really the way I approach it. I don't get emotional while writing, but then there are plenty of other authors who do.

I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.

When I sit down to write a book, I don't ask myself, "How many am I going to sell?"

Writing a book is a brilliant thing because once you've finished it, you've done it, and there's the potential for it to go on earning you a living without you doing any more work on it. It's absolutely ideal for an idler.

Writing a book is the most terrifying thing that I've ever done. It's so much harder than writing for television because it is a completely different skill set.

I write books that way - I put a first line down and say, "Where does this go?"

How long does it take to write a good book? All of the years that you've lived.

It's not my brain that's writing the book, it's these hands of mine.

Sometimes I look back and think, "How did I write that? The book is smarter than I am!" I have never written strategically, but rather, followed the dictates of my muse.

Following takes why. Transactions take what. It has to be real. It has to be the same for writing a book.

Most writers write books that they wouldn't read. I ought to know; I've done it myself.

The process of book writing for me is entirely one of trial and error.

I see pictures in my mind and become the character in the song as I'm writing. It's kind of method songwriting, where you're the actor in the song.

When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest.

A book, at the same time, also has to do with what I call a buzz in the head. It's a certain kind of music that I start hearing. It's the music of the language, but it's also the music of the story. I have to live with that music for a while before I can put any words on the page. I think that's because I have to get my body as much as my mind accustomed to the music of writing that particular book. It really is a mysterious feeling.

When I start, I have a feeling for the characters, and maybe the shape of the story. Sometimes I might even have the last sentence in mind. But, no book I've ever written has ever ended the way I thought it would. Characters disappear, others come forward. Once you start writing, everything changes.

When I am so intensely involved with writing my books I don't like to reread them.

When you write a character and their dialogue, you can't help imagining how you would be acting if you were them. You kind of have to relate to all of them. It's the most personal thing I've ever done.

Writing, and especially writing a novel, where you get to sit in a room by yourself with either a pen and a paper or a computer for a couple of years, is a very solitary occupation. You can read sales figures - a hundred thousand books sold, half a million books sold - but they are just numbers.

It is as easy to dream a book as it is hard to write one.

The art of writing books is not yet invented. But it is at the point of being invented. Fragments of this nature are literary seeds. There may be many an infertile grain among them: nevertheless, if only some come up!

I'm never lonely when I'm writing, because you live with the characters that are so alive in your mind. And you really see them and know them and get to be friends with them.