Charles Frazier Quotes

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.

For me, most writing consists of siphoning out useless pre-story matter, cutting and cutting and cutting, what seems to be endless rewriting, and what is entailed in all that is patience, and waiting, and false starts, and dead ends, and really, in a way, nerve.

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.

With 'Free Agent Nation,' I was figuring out how to write a book along with writing the book. Now I think I've kind of, sort of figured out how to write a book a little bit better. But the process remains not that different - slow; laborious; tiny, incremental progress each day, punctuated by feelings of despair and self-loathing.

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

Many first-time novelists end up rewriting their first two or three chapters, trying to get them 'just right.' But the point of the first draft is not to get it right; it's to get it written - so that you'll have something to work with.

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.

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.

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

I hate first drafts, and it never gets easier. People always wonder what kind of superhero power they'd like to have. I wanted the ability for someone to just open up my brain and take out the entire first draft and lay it down in front of me so I can just focus on the second, third and fourth drafts.

Completing any writing project, particularly a novel, is a daunting prospect. Many people become frozen by the prospect. Others keep waiting for the right time. Some wait for the spark of inspiration. Even experienced writers find it is easier to do anything other than actually write.

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 don't think I'm a natural novelist. Plot is definitely one of my weaker points. I've been working on it a long time, and it's not getting much better.

I'm not a good writer. It takes me a long time to get there. I write and then rewrite and revise and do it over and over until I'm satisfied.

I tell my students that with a 200-page novel, you are going to write 100 pages that don't make the final cut. See it as an opportunity, although it took me a while to enjoy that 'lost in the woods' feeling.

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.

Writing a first novel was an arduous crash course. I learned so much in the six years it took me to write it, mostly technical things pertaining to craft.

I was writing fiction, but not finishing fiction.

I'm impossible when a book is taking shape. Well, actually, I'm despicable.

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

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 abandoned my second novel completely. Writing 'Kavalier & Clay,' I had several moments of utter collapse. Same with 'The Yiddish Policemen's Union.'

I spend about a year between novels.

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.