20 Jess Walter Quotes for You to Enjoy

Jess Walter

American Author

Born: Jul 20, 1965

Book Me Think Time Writing You

Related authors: F. Scott Fitzgerald Frederick Douglass Helen Keller Henry David Thoreau Joyce Meyer Mark Twain Og Mandino Zig Ziglar

I think I would explode in flames of irony if I were to option an idea that I was satirizing in a novel. Jess Walter

Think Would Idea Were Option Irony Flames Explode Novel

I wake at 5 or 5:30 most mornings, make myself a latte and grab a cookie, write until 10 or 11, go have my favorite meal, 'second breakfast,' or grab coffee with friends, or play basketball. Then, around noon, I begin apologizing via email for the manuscripts I can't get to. Jess Walter

Myself Coffee Breakfast Meal Email Favorite Write Mornings Most Until Make Around Go Noon Wake Friends Grab Begin Get Via Then Apologizing Cookie Manuscripts Play Play Basketball Second Basketball

I don't know that any writing comes easily, but I certainly get more immersed in novels. I don't think the routine is any different, but fiction tends to pull me further away from my life. When I'm deep in a novel, I don't pay bills and I walk around in one shoe, drinking two-day old coffee, and calling my kids by the wrong names. Jess Walter

Life Me Writing Walk Old Coffee My Life Drinking Pay Think Further Kids Easily Immersed More Tends Wrong Names Know Calling Around Shoe Get Any Different Fiction Certainly Deep Bills Novel Novels Away Routine Pull

Without sounding overly sentimental about the process, I'd say trying to describe how you tend to conceive of a book is like describing how you tend to fall in love. Jess Walter

Love You Book Fall Say About Tend Conceive Like Without How Overly Trying Process Sentimental Describe Describing

My cure for writer's block is to step away from the thing I'm stuck on, usually a novel, and write something totally different. Besides fiction, I write poetry, screenplays, essays and journalism. It's usually not the writing itself that I'm stuck on, but thing I'm trying to write. So I often have four or five things going at once. Jess Walter

Writing Once Besides Totally Something Poetry Stuck Write Writer Step Journalism Block Itself Five Cure Trying Essays Going Often Different Fiction Screenplays Novel Away Thing Things Four

I tend to like the last sentence I just wrote, which is: 'It was late in the fall and the trees lining our driveway had turned red like a row of burning matches.' Jess Walter

Fall Trees Late Our Tend Had Driveway Red Like Wrote Matches Lining Just Burning Which Sentence Turned Row Last

People sometimes ask who I would cast in my books and I never have any idea. I don't think I could ever write a book thinking of it as a movie the whole time. This would be like building a house and filling it with furniture just so you could have blueprints. Jess Walter

Time You Book People Sometimes Building Think Thinking Books Furniture Would Would-Be Cast Could Write Never Idea Like House Any Just Movie Ask Who Whole Filling Ever

I've been simultaneously drawn to and repelled from Hollywood for years. Jess Walter

Drawn Simultaneously Been Years Repelled Hollywood

With Facebook and Twitter, we're all our own little publicists in a way. Jess Walter

Facebook Own Twitter Our Way Facebook And Twitter Little

I think suspense should be like any other color on a writer's palette. I suppose I'm in the minority but I think it's crazy for 'literary fiction' to divorce itself from stories that are suspenseful, and assign anything with cops or spies or criminals to some genre ghetto. Jess Walter

Crazy Minority Think Other Criminals Ghetto Spies Some Color Writer Divorce Suppose Like Genre Itself Any Suspense Suspenseful Fiction Literary Stories Anything Literary Fiction Should Assign Palette Cops

The war in Iraq, the abuse of detainees, electronic eavesdropping, Guantanamo Bay - these things were all done on our behalf and they may turn out in the end to have created more terrorists. Jess Walter

I remember the first time I went to Europe, I had someone take a picture of me there, so I could really see myself there. There's a sense of being outside yourself, and I think celebrity allows us that too, to be outside ourselves. Jess Walter

Often, the fact that I haven't done something as a writer is all the reason I need to try it. Jess Walter

Try Something Fact Writer Done Often Reason Need

In seventh grade, with some vague sense that I wanted to be a writer, I crouched in the junior high school library stacks to see where my novels would eventually be filed. It was right after someone named Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. So I grabbed a Vonnegut book, 'Breakfast of Champions' and immediately fell in love. Jess Walter

Love Library Book School Sense Breakfast Seventh Immediately High Would See Some High School Someone Writer Named Fell Kurt Grabbed Junior Junior High Junior High School Grade Where Wanted After Novels Eventually Right Champions Vague

I pretty much drink a cup of coffee, write in my journal for a while, and then sit at a computer in my office and torture the keys. My one saving grace as a writer is that, if I'm having trouble with the novel I'm writing, I write something else, a poem or a short story. I try to avoid writer's block by always writing something. Jess Walter

Writing Grace Try Coffee Trouble Sit Saving Saving Grace Else Keys Torture Pretty Something Poem Something Else Having Drink Computer Write Writer Journal Always Block Cup Office Short Short Story Story While Then Much Avoid Novel

Forget being 'discovered.' All you can do is write. If you write well enough, and are stubborn enough to embrace failure, and if you happen to fall into the narrow categories that the book market recognizes, then you might make a little money. Otherwise, it's a struggle. A gorgeous struggle. Jess Walter

Failure You Struggle Book Money Gorgeous Fall Enough Otherwise Market Embrace Stubborn Write Categories Well Make Well Enough Narrow Discovered Forget Being Happen Little Might Then Little Money

Let's get right to it: On page 5 of Paul Murray's dazzling new novel, 'Skippy Dies,'... Skippy dies. If killing your protagonist with more than 600 pages to go sounds audacious, it's nothing compared with the literary feats Murray pulls off in this hilarious, moving and wise book. Jess Walter

Wise Book Hilarious Nothing More Feats New Dazzling Protagonist Audacious Sounds Go Off Than Get Dies Literary Moving Paul Page Pages Your Novel Compared Right

Ultimately if you're a journalist, one day you're writing about figure skating, one day a political debate. I loved that about reporting. I like throwing my energies into various corners of the world. Jess Walter

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