I write emotional music.
All over the world the wildlife that I write about is in grave danger. It is being exterminated by what we call the progress of civilization.
I write five pages a day. If you would read five pages a day, we'd stay right even.
It's cool to be a part of recovery. This is just who I am, this is what I write about, what I do, and most of my work has been a reflection of what I've been going through in one way or another.
I write in English. My first album came out in Italy, and I toured and did gigs.
I write about two hours a day, and I write in fits and spurts - 45 minutes here, a half-hour there - and when I get stuck, which happens often, I take the dogs for a walk. But during the time when I'm not actually writing, I'm thinking.
I don't use a pen. I write with a goose quill dipped in venom.
Of course I want the things I write to reflect well on me or anyone who might feel represented by me, but also, I'm not writing a guidebook on how to be or how my people should be seen. I'm telling very specific stories.
For every book that I write... I develop a history for each person and make sure they are well rounded and flawed. You have to know everything about them from their shoe size, to where they went to school, to what their first pet was, to what they like to eat, to what they want out of life.
Of course, all of the software I write runs on Linux; that's the beauty of standards, and of cross-platform code. I don't have to run your OS, and you don't have to run mine, and we can use the same applications anyway!
I write based on how I feel.
I don't put a lot of description in the books because I write books the way I like to read them, and that is I like to build images and be a creative reader, and so I write that way.
I'm touched by the Beatles. I want some of the music I do to reflect that. Here I am. I love Sly Stone and James Brown and Stevie Wonder, and I want my music to reflect some of that. Here I am. I'm touched by Jon Hendricks. I want some of my music to reflect that. And when I write, you're going to hear it.
Everything I know, I write about. My only research is what I did.
I need complete silence when I write.
I'm working on my music a lot, like folk singing, guitar. It's sort of rocky, folky, alty, angsty. I'm putting a lot of energy into that. I write pretty much all the time.
I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.
In 'Out of the Dark,' I'm talking about my own life. I'm not talking as a character or speaking as a character. I was not as free as when I write fiction.
I write novels because there is something I don't understand in reality.
The men I write can be intense, quiet, outspoken and outrageous, deadly or fun... but I would never waste time on a hero who wasn't honorable, who didn't protect those who couldn't protect themselves, who didn't value children and pets, who wasn't independent and unselfish.
When I write a song and come up with an arrangement and a vocal part, it's always a challenge trying to find a singer who can interpret it sort of the way that I hear it, and it's a very difficult thing to do. I mean, singing is like playing an instrument - everybody does it a little bit different - singing maybe even more so.
I have a lyric journal that I write in a lot. When I'm going to play, I just sit down and have my books with me and my notes and tapes and whatever I need to refer to. I just play and try different things. It's a kind of discipline.
Because I was a television writer for many years, I write very conversationally. I put things straight, and with a lot of humor.
The way I write my songs is that I have to believe what I'm writing about, and that's why they always end up being so personal - because the kind of artists I like, they convince me, they totally win me over straight away in that thing. Like, 'Oh my God, this song is totally about me.'
I'm so focused on trying to craft the story that I'm in my own little world with it and that process. The one reader I'm trying to please as I write is me, and I'm pretty difficult to please.
I'm bound to fail when I write in Italian, but unlike my sense of failure in the past, this doesn't torment or grieve me.
My kids are more precious to me than anything. I'm with them all day, and I write all night.
I've never been good at rock'n'roll songs, anyway; either I'm blessed or I'm cursed, but whatever I write comes out sounding old.
I don't do 'political correctness,' whatever that means. I write the stories I want to write, featuring the characters I want to feature. I don't touch demographic bases to appease this group or that. I write what I want. Full stop.
I write while listening to music, mostly because the world beyond my headphones is too chaotic.
I write in the mornings. During my down time.
In every novel, I write about something - a place, an experience, an emotion - with which I'm intimately familiar, but it's also crucial to me that I take on challenges. If write only inside my comfort zone, I'll suffocate.
I write the novels that are possible for me to write, not that ones I think will come across in a certain light.
I've never had an exclusive relationship to a room where I write. I used to want one.
I never listen to music when I write.
I write about my region, the countryside in which I grew up.
