“I'm used to adapting my novels for feature film - it can be challenging to cut and compress three or four hundred pages into two hours of dramatic action.” TwoActionFilmUsedThreeHoursChallengesNovelFourCuttingPagesHundredFeaturesDramaticAdapting Author:Tom Perrotta
“The funny thing about me is I'm kind of schizophrenic, because after four or five nights in a row of going out to parties, I just have to be alone. I hate people and feel like they're keeping me from what I really want to do, like write a fabulous novel, which I probably never will.” PeopleWantFeelsWritingKindNightHatePartyNovelFiveFourI HateGoing OutFabulousFunny ThingsHate PeopleSchizophrenicI Hate People Author:Bob Colacello
“I write short stories. They may appear big in size, but when you consider it, they're four or five novels in one... In return for picking up one of my books, I'm trying to give them value for their money... the goal of writing any book is to create the illusion that what you are reading is reality and you're part of it.” GivingWritingTryingMayBookStoriesBigsRealityValuesReadingGoalNovelFiveFourReturnIllusionSizeShort Story Author:James Clavell
“I tend to be pretty efficient with my time. I work on a novel for four to five hours a day, and then the rest of my day is spent doing other things, whether it's spending time with my family, or going through and making notes on the script, or working on the marketing. It's just a matter of scheduling.” MatterHoursNovelFiveFourMy FamilyNotesMarketingScriptsSpendingMy TimeEfficientSpending TimeScheduling Author:Nicholas Sparks
“Sometimes I say that writing a novel is the same as constructing a chair: a person must be able to sit in it, to be balanced on it. If I can produce a great chair, even better. But above all I have to make sure that it has four stable feet.” IfsWritingPersonsI CanSometimesAbleNovelFourFeetProduceChairsStableBalanced Author:Jose Saramago
“Others, amounting to four novels and a mess of short stories which I did not think worth preserving, I have done my best to eliminate from the record by refusing all requests for permission to reprint them, and I hope I have done a good job of making them hard to unearth.” ThinkingHardDoneStoriesJobsLiteratureNovelRecordsFourMessShort StoryPermissionGood JobRequest Author:Leslie Charteris
“I taught elementary school and painted apartments for ten years. Now I write full-time and never have to change a thing I write. Every book comes to me in a flash of inspiration and takes me about two seconds to finish. The longer books, like the Time Warp Trio novels, take a little longer to write - more like four seconds.” WritingYearsLittlesTwoBookInspirationSchoolNovelFourTaughtTenTake MeSecondsFlashApartmentElementary SchoolWarpTrios Author:Jon Scieszka
“Over a four-month period, I sat down and wrote every day. And then there was a novel, and all of a sudden, there were agents and offers.” NovelFourMonthsPeriodsOffersDown AndAgentsSat Author:Melissa Marr
“I wrote about four novels before I wrote a word of journalism.” NovelFourJournalism Author:Francine Prose
“Some time ago a publisher told me that there are four kinds of books that seldom, if ever, lose money in the United States--first,murder stories; secondly, novels in which the heroine is forcibly overcome by the hero; thirdly, volumes on spiritualism, occultism and other such claptrap, and fourthly, books on Lincoln.” IfsFirstsKindBookStatesStoriesLosesUnitedUnited StatesNovelFourHeroOvercomingMurderVolumePublishersHeroinesSpiritualism Book:Mencken Chrestomathy Source: Mencken Chrestomathy
“I do not begin my novel at the beginning, I do not reach chapter three before I reach chapter four, I do not go dutifully from one page to the next, in consecutive order; no, I pick out a bit here and a bit there, till I have filled all the gaps on paper. This is why I like writing my stories and novels on index cards, numbering them later when the whole set is complete. Every card is rewritten many times.” WritingWholeStoriesOrderThreeNextBitsNovelFourPaperPagesPicksFilledCardsGapsChaptersConsecutive Author:Vladimir Nabokov
“When I am writing a novel, though, then it's usually three or four hours a day. Ideally, right after lunch until three or four, but sometimes picking up again around ten, going until a touch after midnight. I rarely write in the morning, unless I'm on deadline. I do like rewriting in the morning, though. Guess it's the way my brain's put together. Or, the way it's falling apart.” WayWritingSometimesTogetherFallThreeHoursBrainMorningNovelFourTenLunchMidnightFalling ApartDeadlineRewriting Author:Stephen Graham Jones
“I had a novel in the back of my mind when I won an Ian St James story competition in 1993. At the award ceremony an agent asked me if I was writing a novel. I showed her four or five chapters of what would become 'Behind the Scenes at the Museum' and to my surprise she auctioned them off.” IfsWritingMindStoriesBehindsNovelFiveFourSceneCompetitionSurpriseAgentsAwardsMuseumsChaptersCeremonyOf My MindBehind The ScenesAward Ceremonies Author:Kate Atkinson
“The novel may be dead as a commercial form. When art forms things die as commercial forms, something happens to the practice of those arts that isn't very pleasant. It used to be that a poet like Tennyson could keep his house and his coach-and-four and his staff of six servants on the income from poetry. That doesn't happen anymore.” MayArtHappensFormUsedDiesHousePracticeNovelFourPoetSixCoachesThings HappenIncomeUsed To BeServantPleasantStaffTennyson Author:William Monahan
“I have a library room with four desks in it. On one of them is a spec, on one of them is a present work, on one of them is reading for a future work, on another desk is a novel I'm not doing until I'm a hundred and fifty, and things like that. But, contractually speaking, you just do one at a time when it's on and paid and live. You do your real day on one project and the rest is just literary life. Or intrusions.” RealReadingRoomsNovelFourProjectsHundredPaidLibraryFiftyDesksIntrusionSpecsFuture Work Author:William Monahan
“I can only write one novel at a time. The author of the Perry Mason novels, Erle Stanley Gardner, often worked on four novels simultaneously, and produced a million words a year. I'm envious.” WritingYearsI CanMillionsNovelFourEnviousStanleyMasons Author:James Thayer