Zitat des Tages von Jojo Moyes:
Don't set pen to paper until you know your main characters inside out. Create files detailing their appearances, likes, dislikes, and personal background. You may not use all the information, but it is a crucial step in planning your story.
My writing life has included the struggle to bring up three children. What I do three or four times a year is take myself off to a hotel room to unblock a problem.
I always imagined a writer was someone who lived in an attic in Paris, but my mum instilled in me a belief that I could do anything - so I ended up writing my first novel while working nights as a news reporter.
My go-to winter recipe is beef and butternut squash stew, cooked in the slow oven all day.
Try to write at least 500 words a day. You may ditch 499 of them tomorrow, but you will still be moving forward.
I try to read writers who are better than me because it inspires me to be better.
For every book that I write... I develop a history for each person and make sure they are well rounded and flawed. You have to know everything about them from their shoe size, to where they went to school, to what their first pet was, to what they like to eat, to what they want out of life.
I write in all sorts of places; it's a legacy of my time as a journalist, where I could turn out copy in a hotel corridor. But I have a little office that I rent in my local town, and that's my ideal place.
I always say that in any roomful of people, I could hive a novel out of any one person's family or life story.
If the characters are compelling, readers will follow anywhere.
My Writers Guild of America card is one of my proudest possessions. I was given it after being invited to write the script for a film of my last novel, 'Me Before You,' which is being made by MGM. Whenever I look at it, I think, 'I'm a Hollywood writer!'
We seem to live in an age where we are quietly appalled by the idea of appetites, whether they be for sex, food or diamonds.
A stylish person, for me, is one who draws your eye without necessarily being showy; they wear clothes that are beautifully cut, flatter the wearer, and show that they are not impervious to fashion, but not a slave to it either.
We want a macho high-earner - with the sensitivity of Gok Wan. We want a man with Brad Pitt's six-pack - but one who's prepared to overlook our own muffin top. No wonder most men don't know if they're coming or going.
I wrote three books before I got one published. Most writers do. Have faith, and know that with each work you are getting better.
Love is the driver for all great stories: not just romantic love, but the love of parent for child, for family, for country.
