Marie Lu Quotes

You are just in the middle of a struggle with words which are really very stubborn things, with a blank page, with the damn thing that you use to write with, a pen or a typewriter, and you forget all about the reader when you are doing that.

I hated being a novelist when I was 20 - I had nothing to write about.

If I had to write a novel, I'd start crying after three lines.

As a writer, a blank page will humble the hell out of you. It always does, and it always will.

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.

I found, after the experience of making 'Shaun Of The Dead' and then returning to the blank page - because 'Shaun Of The Dead' was the first screenplay I ever wrote properly - the experience of returning to the blank page and having nothing in the drawer was intensely painful.

The hardest thing about writing, for me, is facing the blank page.

The worst thing is the blank page at the start. Then the horrible things written on the blank page. Then deciding whether or not to throw out those horrible things: lame scenes, lame characters, bad ideas.

The problem with most of the want-to-be authors is that they are unable to focus. Either they have no idea of where to begin, or they have hundreds of ideas and don't know which one to pick. Both scenarios leading to one result... they give up even before they start.

Until a book starts forming in your head, you always wonder, 'Am I going to be able to do this again?'

There are a lot of people, who want to be writers, who stumble at a blank page. You could imagine an algorithm that could give writers a first draft or a starter kit, so it could enable people to be more prolific in their writing.

I have a bad tendency to get rapidly bored with my own material, so rewriting is hard for me. I mean, I already know the story and would rather read something new.

I have to make myself write, sometimes. In the space between poems, you somehow forget how to do it, where to begin. It was good to be task - based for a while. I just came downstairs each day, picked the one I was going to do that day, and wrote.

Titles either come to you at the beginning or they don't come to you at all, I find, and I hate the feeling that I haven't got a title because it usually means that you are left at the end scrambling around trying to find something.

One of the agonies of being an author is to know when to stop writing.

I find writing very difficult. It's hard and it hurts sometimes, and it's scary because of the fear of failure and the very unpleasant feeling that you may have reached the limit of your abilities.

Usually writer's block arises when something is wrong internally with the story.

I hate writing.

I don't even subscribe to writer's block being a truthful thing. I've had writer's laziness quite often. But I think it's all about sitting down and facing down the blank page and doing it, and I've always been ok at that.

If I was going to write something, I'd need to stop for three months and just see if I had any thoughts in there.

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 no longer feel pressure to produce fiction.

For me, the hardest thing in the world is how to start a book.

I've tried writing. Two days later I'd go visit it and say, Jesus Christ, who wrote this crap?

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.