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Writing Is A Process And You Must Trust The Process! Fear And Anxiety Are Part Of That Process Along With The Enthusaism And The Good Days And The Joy And The Passion And The Great Hopes You Have For A Book. But When You Run Into Problems, When You Get Stuck Or Scared, You Must Trust That That Is Part Of How A Book Comes To Pass, And What You Need To Do Is Get Very Still And Quiet Because Self Will Tell You How To Get Out Of A Hole You've Dug For Yourself.

-Sue Grafton

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Writing Is A Process

Sue Grafton

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Writing Is A Process And You Must Trust The Process! Fear And Anxiety Are Part Of That Process Along With The Enthusaism And The Good Days And The Joy And The Passion And The Great Hopes You Have For A Book. But When You Run Into Problems, When You Get Stuck Or Scared, You Must Trust That That Is Part Of How A Book Comes To Pass, And What You Need To Do Is Get Very Still And Quiet Because Self Will Tell You How To Get Out Of A Hole You've Dug For Yourself.

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I Spent The First Twenty Years Of My Writing Career Preparing For The Mystery Genre, Which Is My Favorite Literary Form.

Lying Contains The Same Hostile Elements As A Practical Joke In That The 'victim' Ends Up Looking Foolish In His Own Eyes And Laughable In Everyone Else's.

My Primary Lesson, However, Was That I'm A Solo Writer, Happiest When I'm Making All The Executive Decisions. I've Always Been Willing To Rise Or Fall On My Own Merits.

I Love Being Single. It's Almost Like Being Rich.

I Hate Nature. I Really Do. Nature Is Composed Entirely Of Sticks, Dirt, Fall-down Places, Biting And Stinging Things, And Savageries Too Numerous To List. And I'm Not The Only One Who Feels This Way. Man Has Been Building Cities Since The Year Oughty-ought, Just To Get Away From This Stuff.

I've Never Written About My Husband, Steve, Or Any Of My Children Because I Know Them All Too Well. I See Them In All Their Complexities Which Makes Them Impossible To Render On The Printed Page.

When All Else Fails, Cleaning House Is The Perfect Antidote To Most Of Life's Ills.

My Notion Of An Elegant Table Is You Don't Leave The Knife Sticking Out Of The Mayonnaise Jar.

Train Yourself To Listen To That Small Voice That Tells Us What's Important And What's Not.

The Hard Thing About Death Is That Nothing Ever Changes. The Hard Thing About Life Is That Nothing Stays The Same.

Nothing Ever Changes

It's Disconcerting To Realize How Little You Have To Say To Someone Who Once Occupied Such A Prominent Place In Your Bed.

Writing Is Not About Making A Buck, Not About Publishers And Agents. Writing Is Not About Feeling Good. Writing Is About Pain, Suffering, Hard Work, Risk, And Fear.

If I'd Been Listening Closely, I'd Have Caught The Sound Of The Gods Having A Great Big Old Tee-hee At My Expense.

Sometimes The Hardest Part Of My Job Is The Incessant Reminder Of The Fact We're All Trying So Assiduously To Ignore: We Are Here Temporarily. Life Is Only Ours On Loan.

Personally, I Don't Endorse The Notion Of Mortality. It's Fine For Other Folk, But I Disapprove Of The Concept For Me And My Loved Ones.

Give Yourself Time To Get Better.

It's Been My Observation, After Years In The [insurance] Business, That A Certain Percent Of The Population Simply Can't Resist The Urge To Cheat.

Sometimes Being Fooled By Love Is Worth The Price. At Least You Know You're Alive And Capable Of Feeling, Even If All You End Up With Is Chest Pain.

Writing Isn't About The Destination-writing Is The Journey That Transforms The Soul And Gives Meaning To All Else.

You Kill People You Hate Or You Kill In Rage Or You Kill To Get Even, But You Don't Kill Someone You're Indifferent To.

Life Was Reduced To Its Four Basic Elements: Air, Food, Drink, And A Good Friend.

Happiness Is Seasonal, Like Anything Else

The Character Of Rosie Is Based On A Woman Who Used To Live In The Same Apartment Building I Lived In Many Years Ago. She's Taken On A Life Of Her Own, Of Course.

He Might Be A Man Without Character, But She Was A Woman Without Courage. Of The Two, Which Was Worse?

Perhaps When We're Forced To Forfeit What We Own, We Lose Any Sentimental Associations. Perhaps Pawning Our Valuables Frees Us In The Same Way A House Fire Destroys Not Only Our Worldly Goods, But Our Attachment To What's Gone.

Insecure People Have A Special Sensitivity For Anything That Finally Confirms Their Own Low Opinion Of Themselves.

Pay Minimum Wage, You Get Minimum Work. Nobody Seems To Get That.

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Who Knows What Part We Play In Other People's Dreams?

People Who've Had Happy Childhoods Are Wonderful, But They're Bland... An Unhappy Childhood Compels You To Use Your Imagination To Create A World In Which You Can Be Happy. Use Your Old Grief. That's The Gift You're Given.

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I Attended The University Of Louisville My Freshman Year, Transferred To What Was Then Western Kentucky State Teachers College For My Sophomore And Junior Years, And Then Graduated From The University Of Louisville In The Summer Of 1961.

I Know There Are People Who Believe You Should Forgive And Forget. For The Record, I'd Like To Say I'm A Big Fan Of Forgiveness As Long As I'm Given The Opportunity To Get Even First.

Ghosts Don't Haunt Us. That's Not How It Works. They're Present Among Us Because We Won't Let Go Of Them." "i Don't Believe In Ghosts," I Said, Faintly. "some People Can't See The Color Red. That Doesn't Mean It Isn't There," She Replied.

The Struggle Is What Teaches You.

Age Plays Cruel Tricks On The Human Face; All Our Repressed Feelings Become Visible On The Surface, Where They Harden Like A Mask.

Having Reached The Halfway Mark In The Alphabet, My Prime Focus Is On Writing Each New Book As Well As I Can.

I Started Writing Seriously When I Was 18, Wrote My First Novel When I Was 22, And I've Never Stopped Writing Since.

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There Was An Author Who Titled His Books By Days Of The Weeks And Another One That Used Colors. Then There Was Edward Gorey Who Wrote The Book The Gashlycrumb Tinies, About The Untimely Death Of 26 Victorian Children, Each Representing A Letter Of The Alphabet. I Thought What A Great Way To Link The Titles.

The Memory Is Like Orbiting Twin Stars, One Visible, One Dark, The Trajectory Of What's Evident Forever Affected By The Gravity Of What's Concealed.

Thinking Is Hard Work, Which Is Why You Don't See Many People Doing It.

Grief Rolled Across The Space Between Us Like A Wash Of Salt Water.

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God Save Us From The People Who Want To Do What's Best For Us.

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My Job As The Writer Is To Fool You. Your Job As The Reader Is To See If You Can Catch Me At It.

Pretending To Be 'normal' Is A Lot Harder Than You Think.

You Can't Make Anyone Love You And You Can't Stop Anyone From Dying.

Beware The Dark Pool At The Bottom Of Our Hearts. In Its Icy, Black Depths Dwell Strange And Twisted Creatures It Is Best Not To Disturb.

I Made The Rules I Figured I Could Be The One To Break Them. I Thought I Would Write About Xenophobia, A Hatred Of Foreigners. After I Stated Writing The Story There Was Not A Foreigner To Be Had. I Did Not Want To Just Stick One In There So I Could Get A Title Out Of It Since It Seemed Like Cheating. I Never Figured Out How I Could Get Out Of This Dilemma So I Just Called It X And Weaved X Traits Into The Story.

Lucky Is The Spouse Who Dies First, Who Never Has To Know What Survivors Endure.

There Are Laws For Everything Except The Harm Families Do.

That's The Way The System Works. Sometimes You Get The Bear, Sometimes The Bear Gets You.

People Talk About Dysfunctional Families; I've Never Seen Any Other Kind.

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I Think You'd Best Make Your Peace With The Past Since You've Come This Far. I Think You Know By Now That You Won't Go Back Again.

Too Much Virtue Has A Corrupting Effect.

School Was A Source Of Great Suffering To Me, But Once I Learned To Read, I Disappeared Into Books, Where I Was A Happy Visitor To All The Worlds That Sprang Full-blown From The Printed Page.

Of The First Seven Novels I Wrote, Numbers Four And Five Were Published. Numbers One, Two, Three, Six, And Seven, Have Never Seen The Light Of Day... And Rightly So.

I Was An English Major In College With Minors In Fine Arts And Humanities.

You Try To Keep Life Simple But It Never Works, And In The End All You Have Left Is Yourself.

In My Opinion, There's No Condition In Life That Can't Be Ameliorated By A Dose Of Junk Food.

You Can’t Save Others From Themselves Because Those Who Make A Perpetual Muddle Of Their Lives Don’t Appreciate Your Interfering With The Drama They’ve Created. They Want Your Poor-sweet-baby Sympathy, But They Don’t Want To Change.

If Your Mind Isn't Open, Keep Your Mouth Shut Too.

If You're Unhappy, Change Something.

Grief Is As Contagious As A Yawn.

Emotion Doesn't Travel In A Straight Line. Like Water, Our Feelings Trickle Down Through Cracks And Crevices, Seeking Out The Little Pockets Of Neediness And Neglect, The Hairline Fractures In Our Character Usually Hidden From Public View.

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Grieving Is Like Being Ill. You Think The Entire World Revolves Around You And It Doesn't.

Grade School Was Perilous. ... I Can See How I Must Have Worried Them. I Was The Kind Of Kid Who, For No Apparent Reason, Wept Piteously Or Threw Up On Myself. On An Especially Scary Day, I Sometimes Did Both.

Kinsey Was Never A Lawyer. She's Strictly Blue Collar.

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Writing Is Self-taught. Consulting Other People Only Teaches You To Depend On Their Reactions, Which May Or May Not Be Legitimate. Quit Looking For Approval ... Learn To Evaluate Your Own Work With A Dispassionate Eye ... The Lessons You Acquire Will Be All The More Valuable Because You've Mastered Your Craft From Within.

I've Never Known Anyone Yet Who Doesn't Suffer A Certain Restlessness When Autumn Rolls Around... We're All Eight Years Old Again And Anything Is Possible.

I Write Letters To My Right Brain All The Time. They're Just Little Notes. And Right Brain, Who Likes To Get Little Notes From Me, Will Often Come Through Within A Day Or Two.

There's A Certain Class Of People Who Will Do You In And Then Remain Completely Mystified By The Depth Of Your Pain.

The Jungian Therapist Taught Me The Difference Between The Ego And The Shadow. I Realized I'd Been So Busy Being A Good Girl That I'd Completely Detached From My Shadow. It's Something We All Have, And It's Where All The Creative Juices Are.

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