You cannot predict literary success; the only way you can possibly aim for it is to do your thing and do it well. Emma Donoghue More Quotes by Emma Donoghue More Quotes From Emma Donoghue Actually,the nightmarish thought occurred to me that with electronic delivery of books becoming a norm, soon writers may be expected to provide several versions of their book, ranging from the Easy to the Complex, and buyers will choose what they're in the mood for with the click of a button! I do hope not. Emma Donoghue buttons may book The Collector [John Fowles book] does such a good job of capturing the mindset of a capturer, and also that's become a banal trope of every second crime novel: the weirdo, fetishistic watcher/stalker/kidnapper/kidnapper of women or children. Emma Donoghue jobs book children The paradox of publicity is that even as we do it, we know it's killing off the chance of another reader happening across our book in the ideal state of innocence. Emma Donoghue publicity innocence book What writing ROOM taught me was that I know exactly how to be the perfect mother, but I'm not willing to do it for more than ten minutes at a time. Emma Donoghue mother perfect writing I found motherhood a crash course in existentialism (what is my purpose in life, am I mistress or slave of my destiny, when the hell do I get some sleep?) and [the book] ROOM was the result. Emma Donoghue motherhood sleep book I think sometimes the way to preserve the magic of a book is to throw it away - meaning, not to cling to the way a book does its magic but to find a cinematic equivalent. Emma Donoghue magic book thinking With my first book, I was hired to write a draft of the script. I was so young and less confident. They put me through seven or eight drafts and it was just getting worse and worse, and then the film was never made. Emma Donoghue eight writing book With a time-based medium like theater or film, you can't have the audience getting restless in their seats. They're stuck there on their bums; you have to pay enormous attention to pace and you can't lose your way. Emma Donoghue pace attention way I thought one way to try to hold on to the power was to write the script myself. That way, I could say to filmmakers, "I'm not asking you to hire me unseen. I'm just saying, 'Here's my script. Can we work together?'" So that worked out well. Emma Donoghue working-together writing trying I've been in a long and happy relationship for 22 years and it's never inspired me to write anything. It's too good - nothing to say. Problems, conflict, that's what makes for good stories. Emma Donoghue writing long years I'm really aware that in fiction, women are pretty much equal. There's a lot of very successful women novelists. Not so much [for women writers working] in film. Emma Donoghue novelists successful fiction When people write to me with stories, they are never ones that work for me. There's something mysterious about which ones catch you. Emma Donoghue stories writing people I'm very interested in how idealistic young people can get caught up in all sorts of systems of extreme belief, you know, whether it's cults or whether it's suicide bombers. Emma Donoghue bombers suicide people I wrote the novel [Room], and then I thought, "This could work on film, and I want to be the one to do it." So I went ahead and drafted it. Emma Donoghue film want rooms The film world is far more male-dominated. I mean, the numbers are staggering at the level of how many people on set there are, and almost all the trades in film, there's a lot more men. So I can see without anyone intending to be biased [that] we have kind of a collective choosing of men's stories and a collective of taking men's stories seriously. Emma Donoghue numbers men mean I've certainly seen stats that if you have a woman director or a woman screenwriter, the number of female characters goes way up. Emma Donoghue numbers character way I must say, in the case of "Room," both the book and the film, I don't think being a lesbian author held me back at all. Emma Donoghue book rooms thinking I think I read Susan Brownmiller's classic book called "Femininity" when I was about 16. So yeah, it's been part of my mindset since a very early age. To me, what's crucial is to tell women's stories but also to tell them in a way that is fearless. Emma Donoghue fearless book thinking My mother was wonderfully out about her dementia. She would sort of - she would say to me, I came out to the window cleaner about having dementia. You know, I love the way that verb for coming out of the closet has now become so socially useful for all sorts of situations, like when you need to explain to the window cleaner that you don't know if you paid him or not. Emma Donoghue dementia mother window One thing I like about historical fiction is that I'm not constantly focusing on me, or people like me; you're obliged to concentrate on lives that are completely other than your own. Emma Donoghue your me you people
