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" I go to Canada at least every two years. "
Ian Rankin
Every
Years
Two
Related Quotes:
" I don't hang out with cops. "
Ian Rankin
Hang
Out
Cops
" I used to think that: whenever I heard that someone had taken 10 years to write a novel, I'd think it must be a big, serious book. Now I think, 'No - it took you one year to write, and nine years to sit around eating Kit Kats.' "
Ian Rankin
Eating
Think
Serious
" No matter how many awards you've won or how many sales you've got, come the next book it's still a blank sheet of paper and you're still panicking like hell that you've got nothing new to say. "
Ian Rankin
Nothing
Say
You
" Right from the very beginning, I knew I wanted to write palpably Scottish fiction. "
Ian Rankin
Knew
Beginning
Scottish
" I still think most writers are just kids who refuse to grow up. We're still playing imaginary games, with our imaginary friends. "
Ian Rankin
Games
Up
Think
" In real life, writers tend to be quite boring, but in our books, we're having exciting adventures all the time. "
Ian Rankin
Life
Our
Boring
" I'm not qualified for anything. I've had lots of little jobs, like picking grapes and being a tax man. I can't imagine not writing, because I've done it since I was five or six. Maybe I'd work in academia. That's always what the plan was. "
Ian Rankin
Plan
Writing
Done
" The great thing about America is I always come back with more books and more tip-offs of who to read. It's a country in love with crime fiction. "
Ian Rankin
Love
Great
Country
" I don't think I have one particular favourite writer. I have many whose works I will always buy or reread - Muriel Spark, Anthony Powell, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ruth Rendell, James Ellroy, William McIlvanney, Kate Atkinson, John Burnside, Louise Welsh, Iain Banks. "
Ian Rankin
Think
Writer
Will
" The most difficult part of any crime novel is the plotting. It all begins simply enough, but soon you're dealing with a multitude of linked characters, strands, themes and red herrings - and you need to try to control these unruly elements and weave them into a pattern. "
Ian Rankin
Need
Control
Crime
" I am, of course, a frustrated rock star - I'd much rather be a rock star than a writer. Or own a record shop. Still, it's not a bad life, is it? You just sit at a computer and make stuff up. "
Ian Rankin
I Am
Bad
Life
" I dunno whether it was to do with my parents - we were working-class - but it was important to me to be self-sufficient. "
Ian Rankin
Me
Self-Sufficient
Parents
" People aren't coming to me looking for political essays or polemic - they're looking for a rattling good story. "
Ian Rankin
Good
Political
Story
" In 1991, I won the Chandler Fulbright Prize, which came with $20,000 and the stipulation of spending six months in the U.S. "
Ian Rankin
Spending
Which
Won
" You need a great idea, but then you've got to carry it through. If you get it right, you're going to be a critical success. But not everyone who works hard gets it right, or has the success they deserve: there's an element of luck. "
Ian Rankin
Deserve
You
Success
" A lot of writers, especially crime writers, have an image that we think we're trying to keep up with. You've got to be seen as dark and slightly dangerous. But I'm not like that and I've realised that I don't need to put that on. People will buy the books whether they see a photo of you dressed in black or not. "
Ian Rankin
People
You
Trying
" My mother worked in a school canteen - then worked in the canteen of a chicken factory. Every Friday, the pay packet money would be allocated to cover bills. "
Ian Rankin
Chicken
Money
School
" When I was in my early 20s and still at uni, I won a short-story competition: £200 was the prize. "
Ian Rankin
Early
Competition
Prize
" I wrote 'Knots and Crosses,' the first of the Rebus books, not even realising that I was writing crime fiction. "
Ian Rankin
First
Writing
Knots
" Punk gave you a kind of chutzpah, so even trying to be a writer, I just thought, 'Well, I'm going to send poems to 'Radio Times,' short stories to the 'Observer,' just have a go. "
Ian Rankin
Short
Radio
You
" I'm not Rebus. We're not the same. I don't even think he'd like me if we met. He'd think I was a wishy-washy liberal. "
Ian Rankin
Me
Like
Liberal
" I think writers have to be proactive: they've got to use new technology and social media. Yes, it's hard to get noticed by traditional publishers, but there's a great deal of opportunity out there if you've got the right story. "
Ian Rankin
Technology
Opportunity
Social Media
" I would have loved to have been a rock n' roll star. But none of us was musical, and none of us had any instruments. "
Ian Rankin
Star
Been
Rock
" My father worked in a grocery store. When the grocery chain went into administration, he eventually got a job in the naval dockyard in an office preparing the charts for the boats and the submarines before they headed out. "
Ian Rankin
Office
Got
Father
" I don't have many friends. It's not because I'm a misanthrope. It's because I'm reserved. I'm self-contained. I get all my adventures in my head when I'm writing my books. "
Ian Rankin
Head
Books
Because
" Why does any novelist keep writing long after they've made money? Because they've failed to write the perfect novel. "
Ian Rankin
Perfect
Keep
Long
" When I'm writing, I won't know whodunnit until maybe two thirds of the way through. Until then, I know as little as my detective. I just make it up as I go along. It's nerve-wracking, actually. You'll be half through and not know your conclusion. You worry one of these days the ending won't come. I'll be left with only two-thirds of a novel. "
Ian Rankin
Ending
Know
Way
" My first novel was turned down by half a dozen publishers. And even after having published five or six books, I wasn't making enough money to live on, and was beginning to think I'd have to give up the dream of being a full-time writer. "
Ian Rankin
Think
Money
Live
" I'm interested in Scotland now and then, how it's changed. I want to get the reader to think about that by thinking about something from the past. How has society changed, how has policing changed, have we changed philosophically, psychologically, culturally, spiritually? "
Ian Rankin
Want
Past
Society
" I'm often asked how I write books, but I don't think my approach is suitable for everyone. If I walked into a creative writing class, all I could say to them was 'I tend to make it up as I go along.' I'm not sure that's brilliant advice. "
Ian Rankin
Advice
Writing
Creative