Writing Quotes
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I don't want to deal with the underneath while I'm, you know, while I'm making it or while I'm writing it or when I'm making it. Because again, I don't want to hit these nails on the head too strongly.
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I am writing a sequel to The Touch because I want to further explore the Chinese question that I have raised. There will be more about that in a sequel.
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I don't make that hard and fast distinction between political and nonpolitical writing. I write about what bothers me.
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It took many years to accept that fantasy is the fuel for my storytelling passion, and without that, I really am a hack, writing for money or approval rather than for the pure delight of storytelling.
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When writing about Edinburgh, I place my characters in the parts of the city that I myself have lived in, or else know well, those being the Southside, Marchmont in particular, where I lived as a student, and the New Town/Stockbridge area where I live now and have done for the past 30 years.
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David Mamet was great to work with. He was everything that I thought he would be as a director. He's incredibly articulate, an easy collaborator. Extraordinarily knowledgeable about film and writing.
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I always had stories inside my head and one day I just decided to start writing them down. I didn't actually decide.
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I've been writing 'Green Lantern' for a long time, and one of the reasons I've enjoyed it is because the depth of stories you can tell is pretty endless with space and everything.
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Once the travel guide came out and won an award, once I got an MFA in creative writing, once I sold my next novel, I finally started telling people that I was a writer. I remember how special that year felt.
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A lot of artists use memories. A lot of prose writers, a lot of poets, a lot of songwriters, refer back to something. Generally it's all you've got, unless you're brilliant and can write totally in the now.
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Writing is like any other sort of sport. In order for you to get better at it, you have to exercise the muscle.
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If thou need money, get it in an honest way-by keeping books, if thou wilt, but not by writing books.
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When you're not writing, you're not doing anything else either because everything you do goes into the writing.
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I think the trick of writing a good picture book manuscript is to leave that space for illustration. An illustrated novel can do the same thing.
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My dad has spent 20 years of his life working in child protection and writing policy for organisations across Australia in order to recognise and safeguard against abuse.
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Be encouraged. Your heart is writing a poem on the world and it's being turned into a thousand songs.
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I do see an interest in writing for Twitter. While publishers still do love the novel and people do still like to sink into one, the very quick form is appealing because of the pace of life.
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There are plenty of paths to becoming a writer, but I think the most reliable ones involve total commitment: writing for magazines and newspapers, teaching writing, editing books, representing authors.
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Harper Collins gave me a letter of intent saying that they want me to pen down my autobiography. When I was recollecting the incidents of my life for that, I selected only those incidents which were turning points in my life. I staged it instead of writing it.
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Self-knowledge is essential not only to writing, but to doing almost anything really well. It allows you to work through from a deep place - from the deep, dark corners of your subconscious mind.
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When I'm writing fiction I'm thinking, God, this is so hard - I have to make all this stuff up! I wish I were writing a nonfiction book where all the facts are laid out and I don't have to be so much at sea.
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We have the crime of the century every six months. So for people like me who enjoy, you know, taking these stories and writing about them, the material is endless.
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I may well do some more polemical writing, if a subject that fires me up comes along. Apart from that possibility, I would like to continue to tell stories so long as I have stories to tell.
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Our sufferings and weaknesses, in so far as they are personal, are of no literary interest whatsoever. They are only interesting in so far as we can see them as typical of the human condition.
