Best novel & writing Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 10

“The idea to make hotel reviews the form of the novel came first. So I just started writing hotel reviews and tried to come up with a consistent voice.”

Writing Firsts Ideas Form Voice Novel Come Up Consistent Hotel Reviews

Author:Rick Moody

“In general, each form is a relief from the other forms. I can't write a novel after a novel. I just use up all the material each time, and I need to rest.”

Needs Writing I Can Use Form Novel Materials Relief

Author:Rick Moody

“Updike worked this way, and I just kinda borrowed it from him. So the memoir will be relief from novel writing for a moment.”

Way Writing Moments Novel Memoir Relief Borrowed Novel Writing

Author:Rick Moody

“I have learned as much about writing about my people by listening to blues and jazz and spirituals as I have from reading novels. The understatements in the tenor saxophone of Lester Young, the crystal, haunting, forever searching sounds of John Coltrane, and the softness and violence of Count Basie's big band - all have fired my imagination as much as anything in literature.”

“Writing a novel is a lot like reading one.”

Writing Reading Novel

Author:Katherine Center

“I've been asked which of the other arts novel-writing is most like, and I have come to believe it is acting. Of course, in terms of pattern it can be like music, in terms of structure it can be like painting, but the job to me is most like acting.”

Writing Believe Art Jobs Courses Term Acting Novel Painting Structure Patterns Novel Writing

Author:Andrew O'Hagan

“I think poets are supposed to be writing for television and film. I grew up in the day of early TV that was so raw and funny, and I think we're in the next important moment of television, where it's really telling the epic of the culture like Charles Dickens was doing in the 19th century with his serialized novels.”

Thinking Writing Important Moments Film Culture Next Novel Century Television Poet Tvs Grew Grew Up Supposed To Be Epic 19th Century Dickens Important Moments

Author:Eileen Myles

“When I write my novels I don't really have a huge plan beforehand; I don't have the whole plot and architecture, so the story is sort of discovered as I write it.”

Writing Whole Stories Novel Plans Huge Architecture Plot

Author:Michael Ondaatje

“When a sculptor creates a sculpture, a writer writes a novel, or a painter paints a motif on a canvas, he needs talent and expertise. But to be successful in his endeavor, he also needs to have the passionate feeling that he wants, at all costs, to create a work of art which, in his head, constantly demands to be accomplished. The same also applies to developing board games or card games.”

“What I find interesting and heartening, though, is that there does seem to be a shift in the subject matter being written about by women that is doing well in the culture. We're seeing more women writing dystopian fiction, more women writing novels set post-apocalyptic settings, subjects and themes that used to be dominated by men.”

“I'm not conscious of my own themes as I write first drafts, no, and in fact, I work hard to stay in that unconscious space and not ask myself what the novel is about or what my metaphors might mean because then, I think, you're just dead in the water.”

Thinking Writing Firsts Mean Hard Facts Might Asks Water My Own Space Novel Hard Work Conscious Metaphor Theme Unconscious

Author:Laurie Foos

“I don't see the direct correlation between my personal life and the novel I'm writing until I'm at the end of the novel or very close to it.”

Writing Ends Novel Direct Personal Life Correlation

Author:Laurie Foos

“I've realized that with each novel I seem to set out a kind of puzzle for myself. And I am never sure in the process of writing a first draft how it's all going to turn out.”

Writing Firsts Kind Seems Turns Process Novel Puzzles

Author:Laurie Foos

“When you write a novel you have to live with the characters for a long time. So I prefer short stories. I never wrote anything more than 250 pages.”

Writing Long Character Stories Novel Pages Long Time Short Story

Author:Ruskin Bond

“What I think is the most important thing to learn about any instrument is the basics of music. Learn your ABCs before you write a Hemingway novel.”

Thinking Writing Important Novel Instruments Important Things Basics

Author:Yngwie Malmsteen

“I set up this little office space with a piano in it and I thought that would be quite a novel way of writing the album, to make it like a job - a romanticised version of the 9 to 5. I think that was probably my favourite time. I made sure I walked there every day, which took me about an hour.”

Thinking Way Writing Littles Made Would Be Jobs Hours Space Novel Office Albums Versions Piano Favourite Office Space

Author:Sarah Blasko

“I struggle with confidence, every time. I’m never completely sure I can write another book. Maybe my scope is too grand, my questions too hard, surely readers won’t want to follow me here. A novel is like a cathedral, it knocks you down to size when you enter into it.”

Want Writing I Can Book Hard Novel Struggle Reader Size Scope Follow Me Cathedrals

Author:Barbara Kingsolver

“Along the (writing) way accidents happen, detours get taken... But these are not "divine" accidents; I don't believe in those. I believe you have constructive accidents en route through a novel only because you have mapped a clear way. If you have confidence that you have a clear direction to take, you always have confidence to explore other ways; if they prove to be mere digressions, you'll recognize that and make the necessary revisions. The more you know about a book, the freer you can be to fool around. The less you know, the tighter you get.”

“To know what you want to say is not the best condition for writing a novel. Novels go happiest when you discover something you did not know you knew: an insight into one of your opaque characters, a metaphor that startles you... a truth... that used to elude you.”

Knows Want Writing Character Used Novel Conditions Metaphor Insight What You Want Elude Opaque Elude You

Author:Norman Mailer

“When I was pregnant, I had the romantic idea that after the baby was born I would not only take up reading in earnest again, but also write a novel while my daughter slept in her Moses basket. Of course, I barely had time to keep up with my magazines until she started sleeping properly.”

Writing Ideas Courses Reading Born Sleep Novel Baby Daughter Magazines My Daughter Pregnant Earnest Moses Baskets Were Pregnant

Author:Kate Beckinsale

“I hate that rule that says write about what you know, it leads to too many British novels about marriages going slightly wrong. Write about what you don't know, just act as though you do.”

Knows Writing Hate Novel I Hate British

Author:Jeff Noon

“Only another writer can know how much damage writing a novel can do to you. It's an unnatural activity to sit at a desk and squeeze words out of yourself.”

Knows Writing Can Do Novel Know How Activity Damage Desks Unnatural

Book:The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing

Source: The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing

“No Way Back is my kind of novel - a tough, taut thriller - Mofina knows the world he writes about.”

Knows World Way Writing Kind Novel Tough Thrillers

Author:Michael Connelly

“I would much rather not be the center of attention, and I'd much rather travel and be writing my novel, rather than standing on a stage and trying to get people to understand something.”

People Writing Trying Attention Novel Stage Standing Center Of Attention

Author:Willis Earl Beal

“The action of the child inventing a new game with his playmates; Einstein formulating a theory of relativity; the housewife devising a new sauce for the meat, a young author writing his first novel; all of these are in terms of definition, Creative, and there is no attempt to set them in some order of more or less Creative.”

Source: On becoming a person: a therapist's view of psychotherapy

“Writing a novel that works is an extremely difficult thing to do. It requires a level of skill and dedication that always surprises me.”

Writing Difficult Levels Novel Skills Surprise Things To Do Dedication Difficult Things Surprise Me

Author:Bret Easton Ellis

“Writing a novel- actually picking the words and filling in paragraphs- is a tremendous pain in the ass. Now that TV's so good and the Internet is an endless forest of distraction, it's damn near impossible. That should be taken into account when ranking the all-time greats. Somebody like Charles Dickens, for example, who had nothing better to do except eat mutton and attend public hangings, should get very little credit.”

Should Writing Littles Pain Novel Taken Impossible Example Tvs Internet Accounts Credit Endless Forests Ass All Time Damn Distraction Filling Paragraph Dickens Ranking Filling In Mutton

Author:Steve Hely

“I started writing a novel from the monster's point of view. It has its own difficulties but, I'm ashamed to say, it's much easier writing from a psychopath's point of view than from that of their empathetic opposite.”

Writing Views Novel Easier Opposites Difficulty Point Of View Monsters Ashamed Psychopath Empathetic

Author:Justine Larbalestier

“The mental state I'm in is completely different, but the act of trying to write is the same. I mean, in all instances you try to write good sentences. But in a novel you're free to do whatever you want, and in the autobiographical works you can't make things up.”

Want Writing Trying Mean Different States Novel Sentences Instance Do Whatever You Want

Author:Paul Auster

“There's a difference between doing memoir and writing a novel. If I had put the story of the boy killing my dog - and that was Eric also, what a little monster he was! - in a novel, even if I took it directly from life, it would be fiction.”

Ifs Writing Littles Stories Would Be Differences Fiction Boys Novel Dog Killing Monsters Memoir My Dog Eric Doing Me

Author:Paul Auster

“There are two kinds of typical days. There's the typical day when I'm writing a novel, and there's the typical day when I'm not.”

Writing Kind Two Novel Typical

Author:Paul Auster

“I sometimes feel that my goal as a novelist would be to write a novel in which the language was so transparent that the reader would forget that language was the medium of understanding. Of course that's not possible, but it's some sort of idealized goal.”

Feels Writing Sometimes Would Be Courses Language Understanding Goal Forget Novel Reader Mediums Novelists Transparent

Author:Paul Auster

“After something crystallizes, I can write ferociously and write novels in six months, which in the past would have taken me two years.”

Writing Years I Can Two Past Novel Taken Months Six Two Years Six Months

Book:Conversations with Paul Auster

Source: Conversations with Paul Auster

“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.”

Writing Years I Can Millions Novel Four Envious Stanley Masons

Author:James Thayer

“When I was writing my first novel, I smoked cigarettes. And when I think about what it was like to smoke, I remember exactly the feeling of sitting in front of my big old computer in that little room where I wrote my first novel.”

Thinking Writing Firsts Littles Feelings Bigs Remember Rooms Novel Fronts Computer Sitting Smoke Cigarette

Author:Dani Shapiro

“When I'm there, it's pure silence. There are other writers there, too, and I get super competitive. I have this weird fear that some guy next to me is writing this amazing novel, so I got to compete.”

Writing Guy Next Silence Novel Pure

Author:Matt de la Pena

“I wish every American explored the importance of novel writing, identity, honesty, character and place in fresh-ass ways.”

Way Writing Character Wish Novel Honesty Identity Importance Ass Novel Writing

Author:Kiese Laymon

“Ironically, writing a novel is not a way to sort out your confusion.”

Way Writing Novel Confusion

Author:Curtis Sittenfeld

“I'm a professional. So before I published any novels, I'd always been writing stories.”

Writing Stories Novel Writing Stories

Author:Jess Walter

“It was always a false assumption that white American writers cannot write novels about race unless they're approaching it from a very oblique angle.”

Writing White Race Novel Assumption Angle American Writer False Assumptions

Author:Jess Row

“I never really had novel-writing instruction like people do in MFA programs.”

People Writing Novel Program Instruction Novel Writing

Author:Jess Row

“I often give this metaphor where I say that writing short fiction is like surfing, while writing a novel is like navigating with your car. So when you navigate with your car, you want to get somewhere. When you surf, you don't want to get somewhere, you just don't want to fall off your board.”

Want Giving Writing Fall Fiction Novel Car Metaphor Boards Surfing Surf Navigate Writing Short

Author:Etgar Keret

“Objectifying your own novel while writing it never really helps. Instead, I guess while you're writing you need to think: This is the novel I want to write. And when you're done you need to think: This is what the novel I wanted to write feels like and reads like and looks like. Other people might call it sweeping or small, but it's the book you chose.”

People Thinking Want Needs Feels Writing Looks Book Done Helping Might Wanted Novel Sweeping Objectifying

Author:Meg Wolitzer

“I started writing when I was a journalist. But every time I sat down to write a novel or a story, I ended up writing about myself, which was incredibly annoying and self-involved.”

Writing Self Stories Novel Involved Journalist Sat Annoying

Author:Damian Barr

“So much history, if you or I were to write it, could seem a fiction. These separations, these lines that tell us this is fiction or non-fiction, that this is history or this is a novel, are often useless.”

Ifs Writing Seems Lines Fiction Novel Separation Useless Non Fiction

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“The sound of words in a novel is a pretty amazing thing, and I am concerned with the sound of every word I write.”

Writing Sound Novel Concerned Amazing Things

Author:Jamaica Kincaid

“I wasn't trying to write a corrective novel - that would just end up tasting like medicine, and I tried to stay away from polemics as best I could. I think that, if anything, Fobbit is my way of showing readers there's another side to war - the backstage of combat, if you will. If you play a word association game with Americans and say "war," what's the first thing that comes to mind? Soldiers running across a battlefield through a hail of bullets, right? Rambo, smoke, explosions. In Fobbit, I hope readers will see something a little different”

“It's disingenous for me to say that I wasn't trying to write a moral novel. By its very nature as a novel about the Iraq War, Fobbit steps into the political conversation. There's no way to avoid that. I can appreciate that readers are probably going to line up on one side of the novel or the other. I hope they go to those polar extremes, actually.”

Way Writing Trying I Can War Political Sides Lines Moral Steps Novel Reader Conversation Appreciate Iraq Extremes Iraq War

Author:Dave Abrams

“If Fobbit leaves a reader feeling stranded in some bland in-between territory, then I haven't done my job. But having said all that, I didn't consciously write the book with a particular moral intent. I took what I experienced and processed it through the sausage factory of fiction. It's up to readers to interpret what's on the page - as is the case with any novel.”

Ifs Writing Said Book Done Feelings Jobs Fiction Moral Cases Novel Havens Particular Reader Pages Territory Factories Sausage Bland Stranded

Author:Dave Abrams

“In terms of the economics, yes obviously the rise of e-books and how people choose to read books has a big effect on the economics of the game. But whether people are buying them on paper or downloading them there's still some poor wretch in a room who is trying to write a poem, write a story, write a novel. And so my job doesn't change. It's just how people receive it and economic conditions on the ground change, but that doesn't affect what I write.”

People Writing Trying Stills Book Stories Bigs Jobs Games Term Poor Rooms Novel Economic Conditions Effects Paper Economics Buying

Author:Colson Whitehead

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