“I don’t have any particular routine except to try to get those pages out of the way before the sun sets. Once those pages are done, I’m allowed to do anything I like.”
“When you write fiction, you enter another world. It’s a little bit like hallucinating or out-of-body travel.”
“I feel as though I have a book in mind all the time, from the moment I start it. Even if there are periods of time I’m unable to write.”
“I go months without being able to write anything. Then, when I get an idea, I could be writing 5,000 words a day.”
The routine is strict: same cafés, same hours, same meals. She works longhand or with printed galley proofs, editing by hand with a pen.
"I have nothing against my laptop, but it’s too fast, too easy. Writing by hand is more like drawing."
“You write in a poetic mood. The next morning, you edit like an engineer.”
"It’s a long and slow haul, and there’s nothing about the process that is particularly interesting.”
“I will stop in the middle of a sentence in order to avoid exceeding my page limit."
“I write first thing in the morning after having breakfast with my husband,” she told The Guardian. “Then I clear the table and sit down to work.”
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