Quotes About Authorship

I start writing with only the vaguest idea about who my characters are and what is going to happen, and the characters and plot come into existence as I go. I've tried doing it the other way, but for me, outlining is a waste of time because I never follow the outline.

I've rewritten other films and watched my writing be mutilated, but luckily, it's been mutilated anonymously.

I think I've had a lot of experience with watching other people shepherd my ideas with the 'Saw' films. They made four 'Saw' movies without me. I never really had a protective or fierce policy towards that. I let it go.

For years, I was watching other people have so much fun playing out their version of authorship, like Louis C.K. and Larry David. As I watched them do their thing, I began to pine for the days when I had a lot less expected of me and, often, a lot more creative freedom. The courage that those guys have is always captivating to me.

I try to imagine the scenes as I'm writing them as if I were watching them play like a film.

I really kill myself on titles, although 'The 5th Wave' seems like an obvious title, doesn't it? You don't know how long that took me.

When I wrote 'Sideways Stories from Wayside School' I never expected it to be published. It was kind of a hobby. Now, it's a job, but it's a job I like very much.

My sense of proprietorship has been so weak that actually I didn't pay attention and I lost the copyrights on a lot of the songs.

Get your butt in a chair and write. If it comes out weak or bad or clunky or ordinary, then accept that this happens to everyone. Everyone. Get it down, get it done, and fix it in the rewrite. Just like everyone from Stephen King to J. K. Rowling to Chuck Palahniuk does.

Indeed, 'The Second Plane' is such a weak, risible, and often objectionable volume that the reader finishes it convinced that Mr. Amis should stick to writing fiction and literary criticism, as he's thoroughly discredited himself with these essays as any sort of political or social commentator.

It's kind of a catch-22 now because since the 'Da Vinci Code,' I have access to places and people that I didn't have access to before, so that's a lot of fun for somebody like me, but I'm always trying to keep a secret. I don't want people to know what I'm writing about.

I firmly believe in copyrights and am put off by plagiarism.

I don't have a plan for a story when I sit down to write. I would get quite bored carrying it out.

Pacing is not the sort of thing you can plan out beforehand, but you're always aware of it as you write, because you need to make constant decisions.

I can't persuade myself that one of the problems facing the planet today might be a shortage of books by me.

Originally I had planned to write just a couple of children's books and then, return the focus on adult literature. A funny thing happened along the way - I kept having new ideas, and then I looked up one day, and 30 years had passed!

Collections aren't really planned. I just keep writing short pieces until I have enough for a collection.

I had never really planned on being a speechwriter.

I know some writers are meticulous planners, but I'm not one of them.

For me, writing is more a process of discovering the book than planning it.

I've written a couple screenplays and half-finished plays.

And people do enjoy the plays at completely different levels. And, likewise, they enjoy the authorship question... at completely different levels.

It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.

I became fascinated by the fact that people write to give away rather than write to be read. It's the difference between playwrights and novelists.