Daniel H. Pink Quotes

Writing doesn't come real easy to me. I couldn't write a novel in a year. It wouldn't be readable. I don't let an editor even look at it until the second year, because it would just scare them. I just have to trust that all these scraps and dead-ends will find a way.

Anybody who likes writing a book is an idiot. Because it's impossible; it's like having a homework assignment every stinking day until it's done. And by the time you get it in, it's done and you're sitting there reading it, and you realize the 12,000 things you didn't do. I mean, writing isn't fun. It's never been fun.

The whole excitement for writing anything is quite intense. And for a day or two, you think you've done everything extremely well. The problems start on the third day, and continues for the rest of your life.

I had no idea how complicated and solitary it could be to write a simple book.

I think I wrote 'The Trysting Place' in about three weeks. But it was inexperience that made me have to do that. I didn't feel good about the book all the time I was writing it. It felt a bit like wading through molasses.

A novel is often a longer process in handling self-doubt.

I feel like I've got a novel in me somewhere, but that's something... I was just talking to a buddy of mine about it, who's a writer as well, and he's nearly done with his first novel, and it's taken him 11, 12 years to do it. And I can totally understand; it's a long process.

Every published writer suffers through that first draft because most of the time, that's a disappointment.

It took me ten years to write a proper story. I floundered about trying to shape something, counting on the 'feeling' I had as I wrote, only to discover upon rereading my work that the feeling had disappeared, and what remained was an empty shell.

When I was working on 'Freddie,' I had been trying to write it on a computer for many, many years, but that delete button just won't let anything go forward.

'One With You' was the hardest book I have ever written. I rewrote it three times.

Writing a book is an emotional odyssey, sometimes exhilarating, other times deflating.

I do want to say the process of writing a novel is riddled with self-doubt and self-loathing.

'The Rose Society' was definitely the hardest book I've ever written, because it's so difficult to stay in that dark space.

The process of writing a book has given me a whole new reverence for writers. Mechanically, it is a brutal process; emotionally, it's incredibly healing.

I dread first drafts! I worry each day that it won't come, that nothing will happen.

There's nothing more painful than writing.

I used to think it was hard to write, and I still find the process more or less unpleasant, but if I know what I'm doing it rattles along, then the rewrite whips it into shape rather quickly.

People say it's cathartic to write a book, but it turned out to be quite painful!

Writing takes a lot of patience. It usually takes me a year to write a book. One time, it took me 14 years to write a book, not that I worked on it every day.

I knew I was a writer; I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't know what to write.

Writing a novel is a huge adventure; when it's going well it's more fun than fun. When it stutters to a halt put it aside. Go for a swim, go for a walk, take a week off. Don't panic or be afraid; you and your characters are in it together. Trust them to come to your rescue.

I think what happens to young writers is that they use up every life experience that they have had up to that point for their first novel. Then you have to come up with something for the second novel, but you really don't have anything to say.

I'm not a fast writer, and I find the process of writing a first draft to be painful and frustrating. Usually, I start with a character, a premise, and some image that gives me a particular feeling.

With a novel, no matter where I am in it, I'm fretting about it. Every time I write a book, it starts with great forward momentum. Then there seems to be a period where it slows down a bit, and other things intervene. Then I gain momentum.