A Quote by Colm Toibin
I work very deliberately, with a plan. But sometimes I come to a point that I planned as the end and it needs softening. Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep - it can't be done abruptly.
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The development of the plot of the novel leads to a single point, and it's my opinion that the ending that the novel has, which is a somewhat ambiguous ending, is the only logical ending given the structure of the book as a whole.
A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. Don't wait for an inspired ending to come to mind. Work your way to the ending and see what comes up.
I'll work on patient's thoughts about sleep, "So I must get eight hours of sleep tonight or I won't sleep tomorrow." That sometimes - or "I won't function tomorrow." That sometimes makes it very difficult for you to sleep at night
I've been airbrushed out, as it were. You can imagine my frustration at being erased from history deliberately. I really don't know how Yoko can sleep at night knowing what she's done. But I can tell you I sleep very peacefully.
I'm upset that 'Dastaan' is ending. After working so hard, to see it end abruptly is painful.
A logic proof is: you get a starting point and an ending point, and you have to get there through all these different steps and tautologies. I approach novel writing that way. When I get to the end I have to go back and connect everything.
I always have a plan, but it’s like the plan for a journey. Once you’re on the road, you change things. If nothing changes, if you end up with something that’s just as you planned it, then you haven’t created art.
It's very bad to write a novel by act of will. I can do a book of nonfiction work that way - just sign the contract and do the book because, provided the topic has some meaning for me, I know I can do it. But a novel is different. A novel is more like falling in love. You don't say, 'I'm going to fall in love next Tuesday, I'm going to begin my novel.' The novel has to come to you. It has to feel just like love.
Sometimes my work needs to be photographic, sometimes it needs words, sometimes it needs to have a relationship to music, sometimes it needs to have all three and become a video projection.
My mother taught me the principles of hard work, setting my own goals and visualizing my future. From my early days with Destiny's Child, I understood I had to be focused and dedicated if I wanted true success. We were taught we needed a plan and the discipline to execute that plan to the fullest. I strongly believe if you work hard, whatever you want, it will come to you. I know that's easier said than done but keep trying.
I think one of the problems in determining the ending for a television series is that you don't know how long the show is gonna last. Particularly because we were in the unique position of adapting Tom's Perrotta novel The Leftovers, it always felt like the first season was gonna end with the end of Tom's novel, and then we would figure things out from there and look back.
I want to expand the question of when something is done. I want to vex the ending. I want to mess around with that. I like the idea that if you make a work that has no clear ending, then you must play with the ending. Because if you don't, you're not highlighting the weird, lovely openness of abstraction.
I mean, I can get things done if I need to, but I can really be completely irresponsible and procrastinate until the very, very, very bitter end. In fact, sometimes I work better under pressure.
Not everything has a happy ending, and not everything has an ending. Some things just kind of dribble away or cut off abruptly.
My only plan every day is to get up and go to work, work hard and come back home. And whatever else needs to happen in my life will come in its own time.
It's a complex thing when you're writing a novel, because so much of it is conscious and planned and deliberate, and so much of it is not, and it has to be a dance between the conscious and the unconscious. I bring my best instincts to my work. For instance - and I come by this naturally, or I think I do - I am a very good judge of character.
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