There are things I read doing research, and there are certain books and writers I just love to read. There are books of Brian Morten’s that I love, for instance. There’s a wonderful book by an Australian writer named Helen Garner called ‘The Children’s Bach,’ and I just love the way she uses language in it. Sue Miller Read Quote
My writing life is always a bit disorganized. It’s hard for me to get going, but sometimes, once I begin, I go like the wind. Sue Miller Read Quote
Jane Eyre’ must have been something I read six or seven times as an early adolescent. And ‘Kristin Lavransdatter,’ and ‘Lorna Doone’ when I was younger. My parents had a pretty rich library, no jackets on any of the books, so no descriptions. You just pulled something off the shelf and started to read it. Sue Miller Read Quote
I try to work in the mornings. Usually, I write in my pajamas and slowly assemble myself. I don’t get organized and sit down and get dressed. I do the laundry. I drift in and out of writing. Sue Miller Read Quote
I write all over the house. Because I write in longhand, I can go anywhere I want… I have some notebooks here and there, and then I type it in and pull it out, and I do the revisions all over the place. Sue Miller Read Quote
People are always thinking that I’m the main character in my books, but each one has been different, and sometimes they’ve been men. Sue Miller Read Quote
I always write my first draft in longhand, in lined notebooks. I move around the house, sitting where I like, and watch the words spool out in front of me, actually taking a lot of pleasure in the way they look in my strange handwriting on the page. Sue Miller Read Quote
I think the plasticity of the novel is its greatest challenge. There are no rules; there is no necessary form. You can know what you want it to be, or do, and still not know how to write it. There are endless possibilities, infinite choices. What voice should it be in? What events to start with? What characters will be part of it? Sue Miller Read Quote
Everything I’ve written I see in a very precise way and I hear in my inner ear. Sue Miller Read Quote
My mother was a dramatic and egocentric person, and she died before my father, who died of Alzheimer’s disease. But I’d often thought, God, we were so lucky that was the order in which they died because she would have felt put upon. Sue Miller Read Quote
