“My first novel was turned down by half a dozen publishers. And even after having published five or six books, I wasn't making enough money to live on, and was beginning to think I'd have to give up the dream of being a full-time writer.” ThinkingGivingFirstsBookEnoughDreamHalfNovelFiveGiving UpSixDozenPublishersTurned Down Author:Ian Rankin
“I had two projects that fell apart during preproduction. The first one was this movie that Judd Apatow and I had written about two guys following the Rolling Stones. It was going to be half concert film, half pseudo-documentary. It was Mick Jagger's idea.The other one was Simple Plan, based on a novel by Scott Smith. It's a great book - really stark, not a comedy - about a guy who finds $4 million in a plane crash and decides to keep it.” FirstsTwoBookIdeasFilmGuySimpleHalfMillionsNovelComedyPlansWrittenProjectsStonesFollowingPlanesConcertsCrashRollingDocumentariesStarksRolling StonesGreat BookPseudoTwo GuysJaggerPlane CrashesSimple Plan Author:Ben Stiller
“One of the most puzzling things about a novel is that "the way it really was" half the time is, and half the time isn't, the way it ought to be in the novel.” WayHalfNovelOughtPuzzling Author:Randall Jarrell
“Should novels generally be 600 pages? No, they should not. Half of writing, maybe 3/4 of writing, is editing. This seems to be a thing that has not gotten through to them. It's my impression that you could get rid of half of most of these books. These people are not good enough to be this long, but they're apparently also not good enough to be shorter.” PeopleShouldWritingLongBookEnoughSeemsHalfNovelPagesImpressionGood EnoughEditingNot Good Enough Author:Fran Lebowitz
“Roughly, the action of a character should be unpredictable before it has been shown, inevitable when it has been shown. In the first half of a novel, the unpredictability should be the more striking. In the second half, the inevitability should be the more striking.” ShouldFirstsHas BeensCharacterActionHalfNovelInevitableUnpredictableInevitabilityUnpredictability Book:Collected Impressions Source: Collected Impressions
“I never get used to it, the unknowable mystery of a person so suddenly, totally closed, snapped shut like a half-read novel.” PersonsUsedHalfNovelMystery Book:Steel Guitar Source: Steel Guitar
“Writing, and especially writing a novel, where you get to sit in a room by yourself with either a pen and a paper or a computer for a couple of years, is a very solitary occupation. You can read sales figures - a hundred thousand books sold, half a million books sold - but they are just numbers.” WritingYearsBookRoomsNumbersHalfMillionsNovelFiguresCoupleThousandPaperComputerHundredPensOccupationSolitary Author:Neil Gaiman
“My first published novel, American Rust, took three and a half years of full-time work to write. But I wrote two apprentice novels before that.” WritingYearsFirstsTwoThreeHalfNovelRustApprenticeHalf A Year Author:Philipp Meyer
“My big dream back then was to buy an IBM Selectric. I still have that dream. I really ought to buy a word-processor. Half the cabbies at Rocky own computers. They tell me they can write failed novels ten times faster on a PC.” WritingStillsDreamBigsHalfNovelOughtTenComputerFasterIbmProcessors Author:Gary Reilly
“o matter how much research you do, or invention you do, whether it's a character from a novel, a completely invented character or someone who actually existed, it's a work of faction. By the very fact you only have an hour and a half or two hours to tell a story, you're telescoping events and it is, in the end, a work of imagination.” TwoEndsMatterCharacterFactsStoriesHoursImaginationHalfNovelEventsResearchInventionFactions Author:Cate Blanchett
“Novel-writing is a highly skilled and laborious trade. One does not just sit behind a screen jotting down other people's conversation. One has for one's raw material every single thing one has ever seen or heard or felt, and one has to go over that vast, smoldering rubbish-heap of experience, half stifled by fumes and dust, scraping and delving until one finds a few discarded valuables. Then one has to assemble these tarnished and dented fragments, polish them, set them in order, and try to make a coherent and significant arrangement of them.” PeopleWritingTryingDoeOrderFeltBehindsHalfNovelHeardMaterialsConversationTradeScreensSignificantDustArrangementsFragmentsPolishRubbishNovel WritingRaw MaterialsDiscardedScrapingDelving Author:Evelyn Waugh
“I think I was also afraid of the novel. I write line by line, proceeding at snail's pace, rewriting as I go and paring the excess away. This is against all the best advice for writing long form prose, and I have tried over the years to break myself of the habit, but I can't bear to leave anything ungainly on the page and half the fun for me is that tinkering. So the length of a novel was a daunting prospect.” ThinkingWritingYearsLongI CanFormFunLinesHalfBreakNovelAdviceBearsHabitPagesProseLengthPaceExcessProceedingBest AdviceAll The BestRewritingSnailTinkering Author:Debra Dean
“The lessons learned in journalism also apply. Writing for NPR has taught me to cut a piece in half and then in half again - without losing the essence. Apply that to the swollen prose of a bulky novel and you might reveal a beautiful work.” WritingMightBeautifulHalfNovelPiecesCuttingTaughtLessonsLosingEssenceJournalismProseSwollenLesson LearnedNpr Author:Julianna Baggott
“A novel is a relationship, you know? When you read a book, the writer has done half the work, and you're doing half the work. You're providing the imagination, the words are turning into pictures in your mind, there's an active relationship that's going on.” KnowsMindBookDoneImaginationHalfNovelActiveProviding Author:Noah Hawley
“Typically, among the audience members joining the actors, the director, Ann Ciccolella and myself, about half of these theater goers have read the novel [Anthem], and half have not read it. That is interesting.” ActorsInterestingHalfNovelAudienceDirectorsMembersTheaterJoiningAnthem Author:Jeff Britting
“One of my favourite contemporary fiction writers is a Texan, Ben Fountain. His extraordinary novel, Billy Lynn's Long Half-Time Walk, all takes place within the half-time show at a Dallas Cowboys football game. No one has better summed up the American appetite for spectacle, the link between sports and politics, and the absolute madness of George W. Bush's Iraq War.” LongWarShowsGamesSportsWalksHalfFictionNovelFootballMadnessAbsolutesExtraordinaryIraqContemporaryLinksAppetiteFavouriteCowboyFountainIraq WarFiction WritersDallasContemporary FictionFootball GameTexanHalf TimeDallas Cowboy Author:Adam Hochschild