Suzan-Lori Parks Quotes

I write in a rush of memory.

There aren't a lot of 'Aha!' moments in writing.

Unless I'm really uneasy with what I'm writing, I lose interest very quickly.

There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.

I cannot outline. I do not know what the next thing is going to happen in the book until it comes out of my fingers.

There are a lot of elements when you're writing, or when I'm writing, that are sitting in the back of your mind. I try to let them stay there, because they find their way in more naturally that way.

Sometimes you don't really know what you're going to write about. I mean, there's times where you get into a writing room and it's a complete flop. And then there's times where you get to a writing room and you're like, 'Oh, I'm just on a roll.'

I don't consciously think of any certain direction when I'm writing. I only try not to be repetitive or redundant.

My writing regimen is not very regimented. I tend to be a binge writer, working sometimes in the morning and sometimes all night. When I get going I like to hunch over the keyboard until I feel totally played out.

Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself - it is the occurring which is difficult.

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

When asked, 'How do you write?' I invariably answer, 'one word at a time.'

Whenever I'm writing a book, small details from my life always creep in.

The elegance and the quality - the talent is always in the literature. I start with the word and I base everything on that. It doesn't make any difference to me.

I work via the high-tension-wire method, which is maybe going for long periods without writing while the tension builds up - when am I going to write this, am I going to be able to write this, what is this image about - and I'm thinking about it all the time, but I'm not really inside it, inside the writing.

Of course, all writers draw upon their personal experiences in describing day-to-day life and human relationships, but I tend to keep my own experiences largely separate from my stories.

One of the big breakthroughs I had as a writer was when I stopped agonising over every word.

I know it may sound silly, but I think my short stories have a life and identity of their own. They crop up in all sorts of places.

I mean, if you lined up 100 writers, you'd get 100 different ways in which they write. There's no right way or wrong way to do it; it's whatever your process is.

The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea.

When I sit down to write, I don't have any real goals except to follow one good sentence with another... I'm not the kind of writer who has a map.

I'm not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning, put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I've never understood.

When I sit at that typewriter, I have to be frightened of what I'm trying to do. I'm frightened by my own belief that I can actually get a story down on paper.

I find that screenwriting is at best kind of a hackwork in some ways.

I just let the character speak to me and things appear.