Jay McInerney Quotes About Writing
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I think it's dangerous to think you know what you're writing. I usually don't know, and usually I just discover it in the course of writing. I envy those writers who can outline a beginning, a middle, and end. Fitzgerald supposedly did it. John Irving does. Bret Easton Ellis does. But for me, the writing itself is the process of discovery. I can't see all that far ahead.
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I think, when I'm writing, I have a more clinical view than I do when I'm reading. I like pretending to be God and basically determining the fate of my characters. But as a reader, I'm a sucker. I'm very sentimental. I get upset when people that I like die. And yet I have killed off characters in my books quite heartlessly, and sometimes found that readers were very upset by it.
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I envy those writers who outline their novels, who know where they're going. But I find writing is a process of discovery.
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The only sensible approach is not to take it too seriously. What counts is the writing.
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Most of the people I write about have been ambitious outlanders who have been attracted to New York from other parts of the world.
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A creative writing program is only as good as its teachers, and I was fortunate in having two great writers as mentors.
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