Sue Monk Kidd Quotes

Don't write outlines; I hate outlines.

I spend a lot of time outlining before I write the first word.

The writing process, it's too mysterious to try and describe.

I am a big proponent of writing a great outline. That way you can avoid hitting a roadblock. There is no worse feeling than writing yourself into a corner but if you've figured it all out in the outline then you won't have that problem.

Kids think you just sit down and start writing. I always tell them you never do that.

Even if you plan your book, the actual writing is unplanned.

I always work from an outline.

I tend to edit some as I go - partly because one of the reasons I don't outline much is that I don't know what the next scene will be until I've actually written the previous scene.

Outlining is not writing. Coming up with ideas is not writing. Researching is not writing. Creating characters is not writing. Only writing is writing.

After I finish writing a chapter, I'll print it out, cut it up into paragraphs, and cut away any transition sentences. Then I shuffle all the paragraphs and lay them out as they come. As I arrange and hold them next to each other, very quickly a natural structure for the chapter presents itself.

I like to write from scratch most of the time, but I like to have a backup plan just in case.

I have these huge black foam boards on the wall, and tacked to them, I have these white punch cards with my story ideas, scenes and notes.

Basically I started to jot notes, lots of faxes back and forth to my writer, we faxed ideas throughout the whole first draft, and started all over again.

My writing process often begins with a question. I write down ideas and let them stew for about a year. Then, when I sit down to write, I make a list of characters and try to see how they fit.

My writing process is very organic. I start with an idea. I have the general story arc and the cast. But then I sit down to write, and things change.

When I write a book, I write very cleanly from page one to the last page. I hardly ever write out of sequence.

I love the structural part of the writing process.

Outlining is like putting on training wheels. It gives me the courage to write, but we always go off the outline.

I assemble my ideas in pieces on a computer file, then gradually find a place for them on a piece of scaffolding I erect.

I tend to start with a kernel, a vague concept, and just begin to write things down - notes about a character, lines of dialogue, descriptive passages about a place. One idea fires another. I do that for about a year. By then there's a story, and I'll go on to a complete first draft that sews many of those ragtag pieces together.

The most difficult and complicated part of the writing process is the beginning.

Writing is a craft and, like all craft, proceeds by stages: conception, material selection, rough shaping, detailed shaping, sanding and finishing.

My writing process hasn't changed - it's is the same whether I'm working on a Y.A. novel or, as now, a new novel for adults. A lot of reading, a lot of research if the subject warrants it, a lot of sticky notes and scraps of paper - and get to work.

I write everything out in longhand in one fast go. And then I throw out the first few and start over again. By the end of the first draft, the whole thing's messy and disgusting and horrible, but you really understand the foundational stuff.

I outline and outline and outline, and then I'm very specific about the stuff I write. That's my process.