Tim Pratt Quotes

If I'm at home on my own and the writing isn't going well, I clean my house. And there have been times in the past few years when my house has looked really clean.

I'm really not one of these procrastinators who cleans the house in order to put off writing, but life gets in the way.

I could give you absolutely sterling advice on how to avoid writing, how when you run out of things to do other than going to your desk and writing, when every closet is reorganized and you've called your oldest living relative twice in one day to see what she's up to and there isn't an unanswered e-mail left on your computer or you simply can't bear to answer another one and there is no dignity, not a drop left, in any further evasion of the task at hand, namely writing, well, you can always ask your dentist for a root canal or have an accident in the bathtub instead.

When I'm supposed to be writing I clean my apartment, take my clothes to the laundry, get organized, make lists, do the dishes. I would never do a dish unless I had to write.

Writing is very good for household tasks. Because you'd rather fix a dripping tap or paint an old wall - you'd rather do almost anything than sit and write. I have to reach a point of obsession in order to write, and so I find starting a book incredibly difficult.

I really have to force myself to tidy up around the house.

I have offices all over the place and I avoid work everywhere. I don't like to write - I like to be finished.

I procrastinate so much and I get distracted by anything.

I write slowly and get distracted a lot.

Successful writers say you should never work from a desk with a view, and the view I have from this one is a huge distraction. There's a garden bursting with fresh vegetation, and just beyond the high wall at the end of it, I can see the sign of the local pub across the road. Distractions, eh? I'm so easily led.

I have trouble with any kind of focus or concentrating, or getting anything done at all, really.

I'm eighteen years behind in my ironing.

The day I worry about cleaning my house is the day Sears comes out with a riding vacuum cleaner.

I'm quite good at not writing.

Too much research can be the writer's enemy. You can spend days on end in the British Library or prowling the streets with a Dictaphone, and it's easy to convince yourself that you're working hard. Often, it can be an excuse not to work; a classic displacement activity.

Obstruction can be caused by so many factors - perfectionism, distraction, faltering confidence, external demands and pressures. At some point, of course, you've got to push through it all if you're to write, and if you don't, or can't, you're sunk.

Ideas are the easy part. I spend a lot of time batting them away, trying to keep them from distracting me from what I actually have to focus on and finish. A lot of times, they are a siren temptress beckoning me with the promise of a much shorter, simpler, more slender novel over the horizon, but of course that's very dangerous.

I can have people around a lot more because I'm not always chasing them away so I can work on my novel. My non-novel, I mean.

When writers say that they need to 'set the mood' or 'get into the zone', those are all ways to procrastinate. Not prerequisites.

People may think I'm crazy, but one of the ways I like to wind down my Friday is to get some of our household chores done, whether it's cleaning or doing a big food shop, so the house is all nice for the weekend.

I'm a pretty good procrastinator.

I'm useless around the house.

When I'm looking for an idea, I'll do anything--clean the closet, mow the lawn, work in the garden.

If you feel the urge to write, just lie down and read a book: it will pass.

Set me anything to do as a task, and it is inconceivable the desire I have to do something else.