Sonny Mehta Quotes

I get suggestions all the time. People feel quite free at events or even on the street to tell me what they think I should be writing. What I've learned, though, is that this thing, this connection, has to be in place for me to be able to kind of launch into a world imaginatively.

I do my best to build a strong factual foundation for each of my novels and rely upon my author's notes to keep my conscience clear.

Once I have the story in my head, I write it down. The illustrations usually come last.

All my editors since Malcolm Cowley have had instructions to leave my prose exactly as I wrote it. In the days of Malcolm Cowley, with 'On the Road' and 'The Dharma Bums', I had no power to stand by my style for better or for worse.

I think a lot of the dull parts of first drafts come from a kind of over-managing, intrusive writer who wants to direct traffic. The idea of taking out the parts that the reader could infer is very liberating, and it's weirdly part of radicalizing your work: it allows you to go to new places fast.

There is a certain joy in telling a story, and it gives me great pleasure to be a part of the process from scratch and say it the way I want to.

I consider myself a writer, foremost - a nonfiction writer.

I have great stories. I am going to write a book.

I'm truly, 100% guided by the characters and my Muse. If one of the characters suddenly decided to do something very different, I'd just go with it. It's much easier to let the Muse drive than for me to try to steer.

The great thing about being a novelist is that you organize your own day.

Advice to beginning SF writers? Write a lot, finish what you write, and when it's done, keep sending it out for quite awhile.

I can't imagine what it would be like to write in a relaxed state. I'm going to be writing some stories for my own interest. I want to experiment with different things and see if I can approach writing with much less control and in a better psychological state. It will be like breaking out of a straitjacket.

The fun one can have writing books about books is limitless, to be honest.

I am a literary animal. For me, everything ends in literature.

I tell the stories that are of interest to me.

Try writing a book, dude. That's difficult.

Writing is hard. I mean, I sit there and work at it.

An author writes a book, and that's the book at that point. And if the author writes the book again, then somehow something has gone wrong, if you see what I mean.

Writing is not an unknown territory for me.

There are many challenges I face while working on a book. Working within deadlines and schedules is certainly one of the bigger ones for me. I want to create the best possible book I can for my readers with words and pictures - and that takes time to get it just right.

The writing process, it's too mysterious to try and describe.

I love 'Memory Keeper's Daughter,' but in some ways I think 'The Lake of Dreams' is a stronger book. I was able to tell the story I wanted to tell. That's all you can ever do as a writer. From there on you have no control over it.

Sometimes I write less than I'd like but do research. Other times, editor's notes or a copy-edited manuscript or page proofs for a forthcoming novel mean that I need to put my attentions elsewhere for a day or two, but I always come back to writing.

Quite casually I wander into my plot, poke around with my characters for a while, then amble off, leaving no moral proved and no reader improved.

I like that original romance of having a pen and a legal pad and going anywhere in the world and being able to write a novel with just those two things.