I think I was also afraid of the novel. I write line by line, proceeding at snail's pace, … - Debra Dean

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But I need to wake up somehow. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s best to get through the day half-asleep. Maybe that’s the only way to get through today.

Debra Dean

I think I was also afraid of the novel. I write line by line, proceeding at snail's pace, rewriting as I go and paring the excess away. This is against all the best advice for writing long form prose, and I have tried over the years to break myself of the habit, but I can't bear to leave anything ungainly on the page and half the fun for me is that tinkering. So the length of a novel was a daunting prospect.

Fun, Half, Page, Rewriting, Thinking, Writing

Same Author Quotes

You're unusual. That's better than popular if you have some courage.

Courage, Ifs, Popular, Unusual

Peculiar as I was, and remain, I was trained to be practical. I'm still amazed at the radical temerity of my friends, you included, Julie, who choose poetry as their vocation. I envy your faith.

Envy, Friends, Included, Peculiar, Radical, Remain

Once I had started, I discovered the secret pleasure of writing a novel. It's such an immersive, deep commitment. With short stories, you're continually having to start again from scratch, but with a novel you only need one good idea every few years.

Commitment, Discovered, Stories, Writing, Years

The trajectory of my writing has moved further and further away from autobiography. My first stories in Confessions of a Falling Woman worked familiar territory - places I had lived, people I knew, my life as an actor in New York - and many were prompted by or grounded in personal experience.

Fall, Familiar, Moved, New York, Personal, Writing

If you had told me twenty years ago that I would write a novel set in Russia, much less two, I simply wouldn't have believed you. I had no familiarity with Russia or its history, but part of what drives me as a reader, and more and more as a writer, is curiosity, the desire to explore unfamiliar terrain and inhabit alternate lives.

Lives, Russia, Twenty, Writing, Years