I do write long, long character notes - family background, history, details of appearance - much more than will ever appear in the novel. I think this is what lifts a book from that early calculated, artificial stage.
Writing novels is the hardest thing I've ever done, including digging irrigation ditches.
Writing novels takes up about 100% of my available working time.
I got into my usual obsessive writing frenzy, using all the material I'd worked on for so long and crafting it into a little novel [Bridget Jones's Baby: The Diaries].
I certainly wake up every morning and thank God that I'm not a novelist because the theater is tough, but novel writing is infinitely harder. Especially with the economics of serious fiction being what they are in America.
Writing novels is an essentially amateur activity.
A novelist is someone who sits around the house all day in his underwear, trying not to smoke.
