English - Author | December 20, 1951 -
It was failing part of my Ph.D. that led me into novel-writing. By then I was 29, had remarried and had a second baby. It struck me that I'd lost my path in life and I felt frustrated. That's when I started to write.
Kate Atkinson
LifePathMeBabyLostWrite
I had a novel in the back of my mind when I won an Ian St James story competition in 1993. At the award ceremony an agent asked me if I was writing a novel. I showed her four or five chapters of what would become 'Behind the Scenes at the Museum' and to my surprise she auctioned them off.
CompetitionMindMeWritingStory
Because I write fiction, I don't write autobiography, and to me they are very different things. The first-person narrative is a very intimate thing, but you are not addressing other people as 'I' - you are inhabiting that 'I.'
PeopleMeYouWriteFictionThings
I can't imagine what it would be like to write in a relaxed state. I'm going to be writing some stories for my own interest. I want to experiment with different things and see if I can approach writing with much less control and in a better psychological state. It will be like breaking out of a straitjacket.
WritingControlBetterI CanWant
Life is a very orderly thing, but in fiction there is a huge liberation and freedom. I can do what I like. There's nothing that says I can't write a page of full stops. There is no 'should' involved, although you wouldn't know that from literary reviews and critics.
LifeFreedomLife Is AYouI Can
'Feminism' is such an incredibly awkward word for us these days, isn't it? Not to be feminist would be bizarre, wouldn't it?
FeminismDaysAwkwardUsWouldWord
Alternate history fascinates me, as it fascinates all novelists, because 'What if?' is the big thing.
HistoryMeWhat IfBigBecause
When I started 'Case Histories,' the characters were all going to Antarctica on a cruise. The first part was called 'Embarkation.' It was supposed to be about everyone preparing to embark on the cruise, but it mushroomed into an entire book.
BookCruiseFirstEveryoneGoing
Writing for me is quite a plastic form, a kind of mental sculpture, although that sounds weird. It acquires its character and its depth as it goes along.
CharacterMeWritingWeirdKind
The cult of the individual is killing us. I think Twitter signals the death of western civilisation, but people have been saying that since Demosthenes.
DeathPeopleSayingThinkIndividual
My highest point was the first thing I won, a short story competition in a women's magazine in the Eighties. It was the first time I'd had my writing validated, and the first thing I'd ever shown anyone else.
WomenTimeCompetitionWritingStory
I need to be very isolated to write, and unfortunately isolation is often quite difficult to find. My ideal writing environment would be a country house hotel in the middle of nowhere, with full room service.
ServiceWritingIsolationHotelFind
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict Kate Atkinson quotes