My ears pricked up when I heard Salman Rushdie say this in an interview. I immediately paused the video and wrote it down:
To write you need calm. To write a page of a novel requires from the writer enormous emotion and intellect, enormous passion but also self criticism. That's what you're doing all the time. If there's outside noise – that gets in the way. You have to somehow learn how to shut out outside noise in order to pay attention.
And the way to do it is discipline. Sitting down and doing your job. If you're a carpenter and you've got a table to make, you don't not make the table because you're unhappy. You make your table. Same thing. Pride in your craft is a very important thing. You have to just be able to do your job.
I think it grabbed me because it sounded like someone articulating the cost of writing even one page of a novel (somebody understands!), and then, thankfully, talking with 35 years of experience about how to do it.
You can hear the whole interview here (I also love the story about the difference between the Western and Indian reception to Midnight's Children).
Progress report: I've just put my next writing week back a fortnight from next week until September, because we're busy at Endis Solutions, which is a good thing.
In the meantime I will post up a third excerpt later this week for your delectation. Or perhaps disgust.
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