“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.”
Ever wondered how writers actually pay the bills? This newsletter gets into the real numbers, stories, and strategies behind the work.
“The way you write a novel is for the first 83 drafts you pretend that nobody is ever, ever going to read it.”
“I’m a slow writer,” she’s said. “But I write all the time. I don’t feel alive unless I’m writing.”
