A Quote by Bernard Cornwell

Research is a lifelong occupation so it's hard to factor it in, but I reckon most books take 5 months from start to finish.

Bernard Cornwell

Quote Topics

Books Factor Finish Hard Lifelong Months Most Occupation Reckon Research Start Take

Quote Author

Bernard Cornwell
British - Writer
Born: February 23, 1944

All my books take a long time to research. I spend several months researching before I start writing, and in the middle of writing I often have to stop and look up stuff. At my local library, I am one of the best customers! The research takes several months.

Linda Sue Park

Learn a lot about the world and finish things, even if it is just a short story. Finish it before you start something else. Finish it before you start rewriting it. That's really important. It's to find out if you're going to be a writer or not, because that's one of the most important lessons. Most, maybe 90% of people, will start writing and never finish what they started. If you want to be a writer that's the hardest and most important lesson: Finish it. Then go back to fix it.

Tad Williams

I don't reckon there are many writers who start out really expecting writing to be an attainable occupation. Well, I didn't. It was a pipe dream.

Sarah Hall

If you put me against most sprinters in the world, I reckon over a start I could get very close, if not take them.

Greg Rutherford

I read in a weird way. It comes in waves, and then I start, like, five different books at once. It takes me six months to a year to finish them all, since I read mostly on planes.

Barry McGee

Fortunately, I come from an activist mother, so I didn't have to rely on the history books. The history books teach us nothing about the Underground Railroad aside from Harriet Tubman. So I knew more about it but, obviously, I had to dig deeper and expand my knowledge and do a lot of research once I took this project on. I had, like, a good two months to research before we started shooting, which isn't a lot, and I continued it throughout the five months of us shooting.

Jurnee Smollett

It takes me three months of research and nine months of work to produce a book. When I start writing, I do two pages a day; if I'm gonna do 320, that's 160 days.

Alan Furst

If you haven't read 'In The Morning I'll Be Gone', I reckon it's a pretty good place to start if you're new to me and my books.

Adrian McKinty

I've never been a fast reader. I'm fickle; I don't finish books I start; I put a book aside for five, ten years and then take it up again.

Nicholson Baker

Grown-ups shouldn’t finish books they’re not enjoying. When you’re no longer a child, and you no longer live at home, you don’t have to finish everything on your plate. One reward of leaving school is that you don’t have to finish books you don’t like.

John Irving

Most of my books are a two-year project. I tend to follow my heart and my mind and research materials where they take me.

Nikki Giovanni

When you build a building, you finish a building. You don't finish a garden; you start it, and then it carries on with its life. So my analogy was really to say that we composers or some of us should think of ourselves as people who start processes rather than finish them. And there might be surprises.

Brian Eno

When I first have an idea, I'll spit-ball it with my husband: he's my beautiful ideas sounding board. I usually have a year deadline from start to finish, so I'll piss about for three months and pretend to get started. Then there's four to six months of actual writing and, after that, submissions, edits, and eventually a finished product.

Zoe Foster Blake

Well I've been writing books. So that, by its nature, is kind of a solitary occupation. And from time to time I have research help, but mostly I've done those completely on my own.

Caroline Kennedy

The initial research will be very indiscriminate. I do a lot of reading, buy a stack of books and read and digest them, and then I start doing phone interviews and archival research and then the travelling.