Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Quotes

I am never without my lyric book. If anything inspirational happens, I have it there so nothing's forgotten.

I write stuff down. I have a chalkboard in the kitchen where I will scrawl stuff down if I have a faint outline of an idea. And I'll go into my office or whatever. But that goes from format to format.

I've pretty much stopped using a laptop because I'm not line-editing a lot of things anymore.

I find a lot of writing happens when you're not actually at the computer. So I carry a notebook.

I've been writing in notebooks for 40 years or so.

I'm writing all the time. I tend to work on at least two books simultaneously. I'll spend time with one, and then I'll spend time with the other. Finishing takes whatever time it takes.

It's very important to write things down instantly, or you can lose the way you were thinking out a line. I have a rule that if I wake up at 3 in the morning and think of something, I write it down. I can't wait until morning - it'll be gone.

I write longhand on legal pads, about half at home and half in cafes. I drink a lot of water and eat a lot of raw carrots.

I've been keeping a diary for thirty-three years and write in it every morning. Most of it's just whining, but every so often there'll be something I can use later: a joke, a description, a quote. It's an invaluable aid when it comes to winning arguments. 'That's not what you said on February 3, 1996,' I'll say to someone.

If I don't write down a thought - or an image or a line of poetry - the instant it comes to mind, it vanishes, which explains why I have pens and notebooks in my pants and coat pockets, the car, the bicycle basket, on one or two desks in every room including bathrooms and the kitchen.

I write all the time, even if it means recording in the hotel room. I write on the plane, anywhere, anytime I'm inspired or have ideas.

I think about all my scenes. I do so much revising as I go along; I wonder how I could write books if I hadn't grown up in the computer age. I think I'd be a very different writer. I find myself cutting and pasting, changing things around, and deleting whole paragraphs constantly.

I like hearing other writers just about the way they approach writing. It gives me energy for my own work. It's weird; I'm always taking notes about fiction when I'm listening to people talk about craft.

It is simply not part of my culture to preserve notes. I have never heard of a writer preserving his early drafts.

I have notebooks and sketchbooks for ideas. I also have drawers full of envelopes covered in quick outlines, scenes or scraps of dialogue that I don't want to forget. I tend to grab whatever's to hand and just get the thing down before it's lost. It's not what you would call a streamlined system.

I take almost no notes when I write. I have one notebook - this old green leather notebook that my dad gave me a decade ago.

You know, as a writer, I'm more of a listener than a writer, cuz if I hear something I will write it down.

I keep threatening to keep a formal journal, but whenever I start one it instantly becomes an exercise in self-consciousness. Instead of a journal I manage to have dozens of notebooks with bits and pieces of stories, poems, and notes. Almost every thing I do has its beginning in a notebook of some sort, usually written on a bus or train.

I don't take notes. I don't have any notebooks. I keep on trying to do that because it seems like a very writerly thing to do, but my mind doesn't work that way. I tend to get the idea for a novel in a big splash.

The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from.

In my fairly disorganized life, yellow stickies are too easily lost, and as for software, I try to avoid using my computer as much more than a typewriter and a post office. I rely on my lifelong habit of daydreaming to spin my stories.

I listen to a lot of different stuff, from Mozart to Johnny Dowd to Monster Magnet. I don't listen to music while I'm writing a draft, but I do listen to it when I'm revising.

Producing words isn't a problem for me. And I usually write two books at a time. When one horse gets winded, you jump on the other.

I carry a small spiral notebook with me at all times and have been doing this for many years. There's a shoe box in my closet filled with these notebooks, each riddled with notes and impressions, ideas, schemes, and soup recipes.

I keep a writer's notebook and also put all my daily schedules and to-do lists in it.