Fiction is fun because you get to steal an identity and try to make it authentic. — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
Writing about women's sexuality is very scary for me because I'm always afraid I'll get it wrong. — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I tend to like order in almost every other aspect of my life, but for me, the process of writing is really… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
You can't tell people how to feel when they read your work. You can only hope to connect. — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
For me, the process of writing a novel happens mostly in your head before you actually start writing. — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I usually have more than one thing I'm working on at once - I've been working on three different novels. When I… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
“That night I sat up writing in my diary writing to Big Me: 'I hope you are alive ' I wrote. 'I… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
There's a lot of effort expended once you begin to completely trash your life. Sometimes, writing feels like this to me. — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
People write fiction in their minds all the time - every time we read a 'human interest' news story, or a true… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
The danger in writing about a world you don't know very well is that you can get lost in it, and sometimes… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
A novel requires a certain kind of world-building and also a certain kind of closure, ultimately. Whereas with a short story you… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
The earliest impetuses for writing, for me, were simply the strange things I happened to notice in my everyday life, stuff I… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
Fiction is a particular kind of rhetoric, a way of thinking that I think can be useful in your life. It asks… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I read a lot, but at the same time I'm not a particularly good or diligent or discriminating reader. I go through… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I love to write when I feel like everybody else is asleep and when I feel like the world is kind of… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
A novel requires a certain kind of world building and also a certain kind of closure, ultimately. Whereas with a short story… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
“Beth had been a middle school science teacher and Joni was a librarian and they both had collections of weird stuff they… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I usually have more than one thing I'm working on at once -- I've been working on three different novels. When I… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
I've been reading Peter Straub since I was a teenager, and his work is hardwired into my brain. A Dark Matter contains… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
“It’s very hard — weirdly hard — to clear your mind of all that crap so that you can just sit down… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
For the last few years I've tried to force myself to write at least one page every day, which doesn't sound like… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
“I have to admit that most of the time I read in the same way that I smoke and chew gum and… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
Julie Orringer is the real thing, a breathtaking chronicler of the secrets and cruelties underneath the surface of middle-class American life. These… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
A lot of people work really diligently to maintain a "profile" in the writing world, but that's so hard, and so boring… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
Writing short stories was kind of like I was cheating the whole time, in some way. I went back and forth between… — Dan Chaon Copy Share Image
Even when our death is imminent, we carry the image of ourselves moving forward, alive, into the future. — Dan Chaon Copy Share
For the last few years I've tried to force myself to write at least one page every day, which doesn't sound like much but… — Dan Chaon Copy Share
“It's hard to believe that this is how it's done. That this is how we get here into the world, by accident or design,… — Dan Chaon Copy Share
I also have just my own limits about stuff. I'm not interested in writing graphically about sexual assault for example. I feel like the… — Dan Chaon Copy Share
“I have to admit that most of the time I read in the same way that I smoke and chew gum and jiggle my… — Dan Chaon Copy Share
“Outside, the sleet had gotten thicker. You could hear it pebbling against the large glass windows, you could see it swirling wildly through the… — Dan Chaon Copy Share
I was worried that, as a college teacher, if I wrote too much about intergenerational sex my students would be creeped out. — Dan Chaon Copy Share
Plot and scene are still the hardest things for me, though I think they're the building blocks of what makes a story work. — Dan Chaon Copy Share
“I've been talking to myself a lot lately. I don't know what that's about, but my mother was the same way. She hated to… — Dan Chaon Copy Share
“Your Mom's Car. Think about that. Try to wrap your brain around the supernatural and spiritual implications that the name bears down you. Your… — Dan Chaon Copy Share
“He pictures amputated human arms flopping like fish down the center of the road; syringes floating on beds of liposuctioned fat; gelatinous human eyeballs… — Dan Chaon Copy Share
“In the basement of Sydney's new house is a little room that is about the size and shape of a coffin.” — Dan Chaon Copy Share
“It’s called apophenia. It’s the tendency we humans have to find meaning in disconnected information. For example, some people believe in what’s called the… — Dan Chaon Copy Share
