The writer can never really stop, Ctd

Edna O'Brien said:

"I think that all writers are like that – your mind is always galloping, trying to write the thing you cannot write. That is one of the characteristics, one of the norms of writing."

Northern Irish poet and writer Nick Laird said in 2005:

"When I was a lawyer… I never stopped writing reviews and poems and articles. I’d do it in my lunch hour or after work. It didn’t matter how tired I was.

In January 2014 Nick said:

"I’m working on poems all the time. I was writing a poem this afternoon, before I came here. I’ve got other work—teaching at Princeton, writing articles and so on—but I’m pretty much always working on a poem." 

Precious post with Christopher Hitchens here.

David Baddiel - Writing is hard, Ctd

In May 2014 David Baddiel (@Baddiel) spoke on Radio 4, Open Book with Mariella Frostrup and said:

"I am very distractable. I could get empires built in literary terms if I didn’t constantly get distracted. Constantly look at the Internet."

He wrote in 2010:

"I make sure I write something every day but it comes after hours of p***ing about, making tea, reading stuff on the internet and taking the children to school. A lot of the time I just look out the window. I listen to music on Spotify a lot, which takes 25 minutes to choose what to listen to then another 25 minutes of listening to Spotify's suggestions. Dave Gorman said the problem with writing now is the internet is there, it's a window on the world and you want to look through it especially when there are a lot of naked women through that window. It's incredible anyone gets anything done any more."

Edna O’Brien said:

"[The book] was hell to do. They’re all hell to do." -