A Quote by Ian Mcewan

Writing a novel resembles a journey with only the sketchiest of maps.

Ian Mcewan

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Journey Maps Novel Only Resembles Writing

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Ian Mcewan
British - Novelist
Born: June 21, 1948

I have likened writing a novel to going on a journey, with some notion of the destination I will arrive at, but not the whole picture - which emerges gradually as a series of revelations, as the journey goes along.

Rose Tremain

The most common human act that writing a novel resembles is lying. The working novelist lies daily, very complexly, and at great length.

William Gibson

When I was writing my first novel, 'Elizabeth is Missing,' I was writing the only novel I had ever written and writing about the only protagonist I'd ever written about. Because of this, I didn't think of her as a construct. Maud was real.

Emma Healey

I do not start with a full knowledge of the facts; the whole attraction of writing history is to educate myself: it is an exploration into the unknown - 'a journey without maps,' to borrow Graham Greene's phrase.

Michael Korda

If I'm writing a novel, I'll probably get up in the morning, do email, perhaps blog, deal with emergencies, and then be off novel-writing around 1.00pm and stop around 6.00pm. And I'll be writing in longhand, a safe distance from my computer. If I'm not writing a novel, there is no schedule, and scripts and introductions and whatnot can find themselves being written at any time and on anything.

Neil Gaiman

Writing a novel is not so much a project as a journey, a voyage, an adventure.

Tom Robbins

The novel is perhaps the highest art form because it so closely resembles life: it is about human relationships. It's technique, page by page, resembles our technique of living day by day-a way of relating.

Joyce Carol Oates

A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It was only after two years' work that it occurred to me that I was a writer. I had no particular expectation that the novel would ever be published, because it was sort of a mess. It was only when I found myself writing things I didn't realise I knew that I said, 'I'm a writer now.' The novel had become an incentive to deeper thinking. That's really what writing is—an intense form of thought.

Don DeLillo

They were maps that lived, maps that one could study, frown over, and add to; maps, in short, that really meant something.

Gerald Durrell

What I like about writing a stand alone novel is you're starting with a fresh world and fresh characters. Part of what I love about writing is that journey of discovery where it's all new to me as well.

Michael Koryta

Writing has to do with truth-telling. When you're writing, let's say, an essay for a magazine, you try to tell the truth at every moment. You do your best to quote people accurately and get everything right. Writing a novel is a break from that: freedom. When you're writing a novel, you are in charge; you can beef things up.

Nicholson Baker

I resolve to venture into the city on my own. I look at maps in the library—subway maps, bus maps, and regular maps—and try to memorize them. I’m afraid of getting lost; no, I’m afraid of sinking into the city as in a quicksand, afraid of getting sucked into something I can never escape.

Deborah Feldman

Writing an essay is like a school assignment: I have my topic, I organize my thoughts, and I write it. I have complete control over what I'm doing. Writing a novel is like setting out on a journey without knowing who or what I'll encounter, how long it's going to take, or where I'm going to end up.

Tawni O'Dell

The process of writing a novel is like taking a journey by boat. You have to continually set yourself on course. If you get distracted or allow yourself to drift, you will never make it to the destination. It's not like highly defined train tracks or a highway; this is a path that you are creating discovering. The journey is your narrative. Keep to it and there will be a tale told.

Walter Mosley

You know, I can imagine not writing a novel and writing poetry only.

Vikram Seth

A Quote by Ian Mcewan

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