Quotes About Authorship

Like most writers I spend a lot of my time sort of thinking, "It's such agony, I can't do it."

You may well ask me why...I took the time to write [books]. I can only reply that I do not know. There was no why about it. I had to: that was all.

I wouldn't write any kind of book without a contract and an advance. You can't invest that amount of time and effort without one.

My priority is my books, at least at this point. What I have to do is write the narrative of this time.

I've been writing books without ego for a very long time. I feel like it will get what it deserves. Or won't get what it doesn't deserve.

The thing that was important to me about Hemingway at the time was that Hemingway taught me that you could be a writer and get away with it.

Every kind of book I've written has been written in a different way. There has not been any set time for writing, any set way, I haven't re-invented the process every time but I almost have.

I've been writing for a long time. I sat down to write my first novel in the middle of March of 1982.

Most writers enjoy two periods of happiness when a glorious idea comes to mind and, secondly, when a last page has been written and you haven't had time to know how much better it ought to be.

The best thing about being a best-selling writer is being a best-selling writer. More seriously, today I can write full time and pay the bills.

I tend to delay writing by doing more research - it's really the act of writing the piece that I have the hardest time with.

I remember the first time I held my book, my first book in my hands. I cannot tell you how it moved me.

Going off the road just leaves me more time to be a writer.

The best visual book I can think of is Lynda Barry's What It Is, but although I refer to it all the time it's not a creative writing book per se.

I don't think I've ever had a mentor. The closest thing is my friend Christopher Fowler, another writer. Chris kept me sane for a long time before I made it.

For the first time I am working on a book that is not limited and that will take every bit of experience and thought and feeling that I have.

Discover the time of day when you write best, and write then. For me it's about 7 am to noon. For other people it's overnight. Try not to do anything other than write between those times.

But at the same time, I have trouble keeping things out of books, which is why I don't write short stories because they turn into novels.

My first book took five years to write and I made $1,000 on it. The second took three years and I made $3,000. All this time I was a housewife being supported by a husband. I was very lucky.

I tweet in the morning and the evening. To write 12 hours a day, there is a moment when you're really tired. It's my relaxing time.

I do not put in long hours at the keys - or very seldom. Instead, I snatch time. I write in the crannies of my life.

I'm thankful to have time to write.

The combination of pictures and words together can be really effective, and I began to realise in my career that unless I wrote my own words, then my message was diluted

A tale begins and where it ends, matters. Who tells the story and why, that makes all the difference.