Quotes About Writing

Eventually, I decided that if I was going to really write a novel, I couldn't do it in New York City while holding down a job. You need a constant money source to live in New York City unless you're independently wealthy, which I'm not.

The profession is never going back to those days when a handful of wealthy people treated publishing like a hobby: one where the business can lose money because the family has lots of it to burn. Frankly, I don't think that model was ever sustainable, and it really only enriched a small number of writers.

There are those who write because they believe they have something so marvelous that it will make them famous and wealthy, a lauded commodity who will be invited to a lifetime of cocktail parties.

An intellectual's weapon is writing, but sometimes people react as if it were a firearm. A writer can do a lot to change the situation, but as far as I know, no dictatorship has fallen because of a sonnet.

We write in a culture that favors the heft of the novel. Better still if the novel in question is large enough to be wielded interchangeably as a doorstop and a weapon.

As the 19th century teetered into the 20th, the clank of typewriter keys went from solo to symphony. They were the weapon of choice for professional writers, the business elite, people with things to say and the need to say them quickly.

I once had a boyfriend who couldn't write unless he was wearing a necktie and a dress shirt, which I thought was really weird, because this was a long time ago, and no one I knew ever wore dress shirts, let alone neckties; it was like he was a grown-up reenacter or something.

It isn't enough for a book to be transporting or entertaining; it must also come from a place of knowledge and an understanding of aesthetics. Even where a longlisted book wears its craftsmanship lightly, the power of the writing shines through.

I set myself 600 words a day as a minimum output, regardless of the weather, my state of mind or if I'm sick or well. There must be 600 finished words-not almost right words.

I really like Los Angeles. I like the weather, the openness of it, the beach, the mountains, the desert. I find it inspiring. I get quite a lot of writing done out there.

Maybe it's the buildings, maybe it's the weather, but you can see it affects us - that Scottish gallows humour; our tendency towards bleakness, to look at things in a negative way. Those definitely come out in my writing.

If you write a novel alone you sit and you weave a little narrative. And it's O.K., but it's of no account.

Though my books are written from a historical perspective, I have goon so far back that I am in the realm of prehistorical speculation rather than simple historical fact to weave my stories around.

I weave the company into what we laughingly call 'Jack's novel.' I write this novel for them about who they are and what's going on in their world. When I had 90 people in 'Porgy and Bess,' each had a story, history and family relationship.

I've never been able to write narrative as a character, really. Jenny Lewis, I love her stuff, I love that she can weave these American Gothic fairytales. I feel like I sound inauthentic when I do that, so I tend to write from a personal standpoint.

Like most writers, I find the Web is a wonderful distraction. Who doesn't need that last minute research before writing?

Web series is a new format, where everything, from the writing to storytelling is different. As an actor you have to approach it differently because you have a character which can go on for a long time. It is my duty to be on my toes, understand the new technology and adapt.

My Web site, everything I write in there is from me.

If I were to write Web now, it would be a much, much darker book.

I think for a young journalist, it's better to write for the Web at the moment than it is for print.

To be honest, the only thing I ever really wanted to be was a writer - since I read 'Charlotte's Web' as a child.

At one point, I was blogging prodigiously, in the late '90s; and I was getting, like, millions of pages because I was, like, one of the only people writing about web design, and I was always writing about web design.

When in my writing lair, I have no access to the Web. Otherwise, I'm like one of those lab rats on too much sugar. To compile my Google searches would be to see my sludgy, allusive brain at work.

By mid-morning, I take a break from my novel and work on my Sunday Style column, which is about pop culture and what I find on the web. I usually start writing it at the beginning of the week and give it a couple of days to marinate before I return to it.