“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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“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.”
“I’m always pretending that I’m sitting across from somebody. I’m telling them a story, and I don’t want them to get up until it’s finished.”
“You have to trust your own voice. You have to earn the right to be read, and then you have to fight to keep every reader.”
“I would not think about whether I had a good idea; I would just write it. I would not think about whether I was capable; I would just put my pen on the page.”
“I don’t go out. I forget to eat. I sleep very little. And once it’s done, I veg out and play video games for six weeks.”
“Finish what you’ve started. Then put it away for a while. Come back to it with fresh eyes.”
“Even though you have a busy life, try to reserve an hour a day to write. Some very good things have been written on an hour a day.”
“I can write in my backyard, by the fire, on the beach, on an airplane. It helps to be disciplined, but I also believe creativity follows discipline.”
“I have absolutely given up on the idea of peace and quiet as being necessary to writing,” she said. “I work in the time I have.”
