“I used to think that: whenever I heard that someone had taken 10 years to write a novel, I'd think it must be a big, serious book. Now I think, 'No - it took you one year to write, and nine years to sit around eating Kit Kats.” ThinkingWritingYearsBookBigsUsedNovelTakenHeardSeriousEatingNineNine Years Author:Ian Rankin
“I think in general, novels by men tend to be taken more seriously than novels by women.” ThinkingMenNovelTaken Author:Curtis Sittenfeld
“In the usual way I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of "normal" work. In my twenties some of my work for children was published by Macmillan. However, I was twenty-seven before my adult novel, The Birthgrave, was taken by DAW Books in the USA. This enabled me finally to stop doing stupid and soul-killing jobs, and start working day and night as a professional writer. It felt like a rescue from damnation, and still does.” WayShouldChildrenDoeStillsBookSoulFeelingsJobsNightWishFeltNovelTakenStupidNormalAdultsTwentiesSevenKillingHatedUsaUsualRescuePublishersDay And NightManuscriptsDamnationDrudgery Author:Tanith Lee
“Peter Watts has taken the core myths of the First Contact story and shaken them to pieces. The result is a shocking and mesmerizing performance, a tour-de-force of provocative and often alarming ideas. It is a rare novel that has the potential to set science fiction on an entirely new course. Blindsight is such a book.” FirstsBookIdeasStoriesCoursesForceResultsFictionNovelTakenPiecesPerformancesScience FictionMythCoreContactPeterShockingProvocativeFirst ContactMesmerizing Author:Karl Schroeder
“I started to write a series of fantasy novels when I was eleven. I have never taken anything artistic as seriously; since then, writing has felt like an attempt to get back there, to my bedroom, my maps, those races and languages and runes.” WritingLanguageFeltRaceFantasyNovelTakenSeriesArtisticMapsGet BackBedroomElevenRunesFantasy Novels Author:Ken Baumann
“I still find it absurdly difficult to concentrate on a novel if there's a phone or computer to hand; I have taken to locking them outside the room like noisy pets.” IfsStillsHandsDifficultRoomsNovelTakenComputerPhonesPetNoisy Author:David Nicholls
“I think my writing process changes as I gain more life experience... It has taken me many years to be able to write a novel that shows the points of view of people of different ages and personalities.” PeopleThinkingWritingYearsDifferentShowsAgeAbleProcessViewsNovelTakenPersonalityGainsPoint Of ViewLife ExperienceWriting ProcessDifferent Ages Author:Kathleen Winter
“The term "bend sinister" means a heraldic bar or band drawn from the left side (and popularly, but incorrectly, supposed to denote bastardy). This choice of title was an attempt to suggest an outline broken by refraction, a distortion in the mirror of being, a wrong turn taken by life, a sinistral and sinister world. The title's drawback is that a solemn reader looking for "general ideas" or "human interest" (which is much the same thing) in a novel may be led to look for them in this one.” WorldHumansLooksMayMeanIdeasTurnsChoicesLeftSidesTermInterestNovelTakenBrokenReaderBandMirrorsBarsTitlesSolemnOutlinesDistortionSinisterDrawbacksWrong Turn Author:Vladimir Nabokov
“With a historical novel you know that liberties are being taken. Since Walter Scott, we know that poetic license, dramatic license, that events been conflated and that liberties have been taken, characters ditto, dates rearranged. But people don't seem to understand that movies are fictions, they are dramatizations, at least historical movies, and we should accord the moviemakers some of the same understanding and latitude. When you go to a movie you know it's a dramatization and not history.” PeopleKnowsShouldHas BeensCharacterSeemsUnderstandingFictionLibertyNovelTakenEventsHistoricalDramaticPoeticLicenseAccordLatitudeHistorical NovelsPoetic License Author:Nicholas Meyer
“My springboard is always the script. Even if the script is taken from a novel, I often haven't read the novel...” IfsNovelTakenHavensScriptsSpringboards Author:John Hurt
“And I don't want to begin something, I don't want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are known to me. As if the story has already taken place, and it's my responsibility to put it in the right order to tell it to you.” IfsWantWritingFirstsImportantStoriesOrderResponsibilityKnownNovelTakenConnectionsSentencesAlready Taken Author:John Irving