Sue Grafton Quotes

When I write a book, I'm making it the best book I can.

You write a lot of books; you hope you get better.

I often meet frustrated young writers who say they've only got so far and just can't finish a book. Even if you don't happen to use what you've worked on that day, it has taught you something and you'll be amazed when you might come back to it and use it again.

My writing is progressing slowly, but at least it's moving forward. I'm sure that's the case. The only problem is that I'm never absolutely certain that what I've written is any good.

There are many challenges I face while working on a book. Working within deadlines and schedules is certainly one of the bigger ones for me. I want to create the best possible book I can for my readers with words and pictures - and that takes time to get it just right.

There are as many routes to writing success as there are writers who got there. My advice, however, applies across the board: read widely, learn the craft by whatever means you can - workshops and writing programs are ideal, but even self-study can work - apply what you learn, and persevere.

Write every day, just to keep in the habit, and remember that whatever you have written is neither as good nor as bad as you think it is. Just keep going, and tell yourself that you will fix it later.

Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry.

I started seriously applying myself to writing fiction immediately after I finished graduate school. By 'seriously,' I mean that, instead of noodling along on a story, finishing it or not as the mood struck me, I set out to complete what I started, to polish it to the best of my ability, and to send out the finished story.

We don't have to think up a title till we get the doggone book written.

Anybody who likes writing a book is an idiot. Because it's impossible; it's like having a homework assignment every stinking day until it's done. And by the time you get it in, it's done and you're sitting there reading it, and you realize the 12,000 things you didn't do. I mean, writing isn't fun. It's never been fun.

I just do the best I can and write something interesting, to tell stories in an interesting way and move forward from there.

When you're writing a book, you don't really think about it critically. You don't want to know too well what you're doing. First, you write the book, then you find the justification for it.

For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.

I'm remembering one book that I wrote, 'Fourth Grade Rats,' that took a month to write, but most of them, full-length novels, I would say about a year.

My favorite book is always the one I'm working on at the moment.

You write, hoping to write a good book; that's it.

No matter how many books you've written, whenever you sit down to write a new book, you always feel the same challenge - how do you shape this story into a book that people are going to love.

It depends on the book and what else is going on during my life, but it usually takes me about six months to write and revise the first draft.

'One With You' was the hardest book I have ever written. I rewrote it three times.

I'm just going to write the best books I can.

I always want to make sure the book I'm writing is the best book I can deliver.

I'm sure every author has their own process.

In a way, I started 'Goon Squad' not even realizing I was writing a book. I thought I was just writing a few stories to stall before starting this other book that I wanted to write - or thought I wanted to write: I still haven't written it.

Really, what you should tell a novelist is, 'Keep going until you finish the draft. Don't show it to anyone.'