Quotes About Process

My journals were a clearing house - a garbage can. Once I was writing seriously, I understood that this was the stuff that didn't belong in my work.

I've often heard academics disparage non-academic writing in terms that suggest it could be a negative in the tenure process, irrespective of the quality of academic work under review.

Each book takes anywhere from two to three years to complete, from concept to outline to final edits. I work on as many as five at a time.

Every time I get through the work on a book of nonfiction, I say I'll never do it again; it takes so much out of you.

The hardest part of art-making is living your life in such a way that your work gets done-over and over-and that means, among other things, finding a host of practices that are just plain useful.

In a certain way, you get some new tools to work with, but I don't know if it ultimately makes the creative process any easier.

I think when I work with actors it's all about a process of learning to be private in public, instead of performing in public. Which is what women do: we perform, especially our sexuality.

Some guys can do digital things where they make some tricks work, but I work on paper and I work with washes. You can't just change things afterwards. You have to get it right on the page.

I know writers for whom the act of writing is a necessary chore. They suffer to write great work. I am very lucky that for me writing is a delight.

When real work happens and that's when real art happens.

I do a nice sloppy first draft like everybody else. And then just work at it and work at it and groom it. I get input from other people.

I don't plot the books out ahead of time, I don't plan them. I don't begin at the beginning and end at the end. I don't work with an outline and I don't work in a straight line.

It's almost a work-shopping process to create the characters with the actors.

For me, I'm more of a songwriter than a guitar player or singer. And not having things to work on was really kind of nice.

The more work you put in on your outline and getting the skeleton of your story right, the easier the process is later.

My beats are pretty s - - y, though. I don't know how they work.

I like to go into the studio and start work on a project when it's time. I don't like to do it too early or too late.

We all know artists who like to collaborate, who like to work as a team. It all kind of depends what your habitual working method is.

If you bring your sexual impulses to your creative work... you'll be working from deep in the genetic code, down where life wants to make new life and feel good in the process.

I work on a political subject quite often, and the paintings, for me, are not finished until they're printed.

When you begin your work, nothing exists. When it is finished it looks as if it just happened, spontaneously, effortlessly, convincingly. It looks as though it had been there all along.

We'll work with any designer producing something linked to gastronomy. So a chair for the dining area, a van to move food around. Anything that's connected to the gastronomic process.

I develop my own film. And I work in spurts. I pile it up.

I work very fast, keeping the ideas flowing but making sure they come out the way I intended.