Quotes About Writing

I don't know where this thing about me being a travel writer comes from. It's nothing to do with me; I hate travel writing. I don't do it - I do it a little bit, but not much. I don't believe in it. I think it's over. The world is so saturated now that you don't need it.

I'd rather see a writer write 15 minutes a day than save it all up for a Saturday. A work gets a coating on it when it's not been worked on for a while, makes it hard to break back in.

I decided with 'Savage Season' to use a lot of things in my life as the basis.

I've made myself laugh from some ideas - but I've never scared myself.

You have to write about what scares you.

I feel like I try to write from an honest of a place as I can - without scaring people off too much, I guess.

I don't like scaring people off. When I tell people I'm a writer, they look kind of interested. Then I tell them that I write poetry, and they think I'm weird.

I write scenes - often quite long scenes - mainly because I still get seduced into writing six lines where one and a half will do.

What's fun now is that I have a show at USA that I co-wrote called 'Benched.' I'm completely behind the scenes and not the actor at all.

If my characters travel somewhere, I generally write about a place I know to give the scenes more authenticity.

Some people manage their writing by saying, 'I need to get 2,000 words written today,' others by saying, 'I will write for X hours.' Not me. I start with a plan for the book, break it down into scenes, and I know what scenes need to get written each day. If the scene takes more words than I thought, so be it.

For me, when I start a novel, I only have a general sense of what I am going to do - usually three or four big scenes or something to which I can really respond emotionally.

Death scenes are hard. Sex scenes are hard.

If your character is written well and is meaty enough, even two scenes has the potential to stand out.

I am not a person of schedule when it comes to writing.

Any sufficiently badly-written science is indistinguishable from magic.

I started out writing much more science fictiony stuff and writing about science fiction.

The traditional route to success in science fiction is by making a name for yourself in short fiction, so people who read science fiction magazines will recognize your byline on a novel.

I love writing romance, along with science fiction and fantasy - and my books usually meld all three to some degree.

One of the best and most responsible things a scientist can do is to write for the popular press.

When I first started writing, I didn't write about scientists at all. I think I wanted a break from that part of my world.

Right from the very beginning, I knew I wanted to write palpably Scottish fiction.

I think it made me all that much stronger of a writer when you have to teach yourself how to say words from scratch.

It is easier to rewrite anything - even the worst writing in the world - than it is to write something from scratch.