Any time you write history, you insert your opinion. You pick and choose what you are going to write about. I feel really happy not inserting myself. I spend too much of my life inserting myself. It's just great to let other people carry the narrative.
The novels take longer to write than the picture book texts, and they do take a different sort of concentration. However, a very short, simple story that works well is just as exciting to me as any longer and more complex book.
I don't think that much anymore in terms of 'write a record, record a record, tour a record,' because in my own mind, things have changed, in that I'm just an ongoing artist. I'm not quite sure what the next project needs to be until it presents himself, and then I know. I just follow dutifully while I'm being led.
Having 'The Expats' not be 'wholesale-y' rejected by the world made it possible for me to write the second book and have a publisher buy it before it was entirely written. And it made it easier for me and my publisher to get 'The Accident' out into the world without trying to convince people to pay attention to it the way you do for a first novel.
I set out to write a screenplay but, since my early 20s, had dreamed of writing a novel.
I wrote a little autobiography about how luck has to do with everything. It's called 'My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business.' A publisher came to me and said, 'Write a book,' so I did. I wanted to call it 'Everybody Else Has Got a Book.'
I started blogging a decade ago because I like blogging. Writing's a kind of lonely thing to do, and I liked the idea of demystifying the process because I loved it as a kid and teenager and as somebody who wanted desperately to write.
My main goal as a songwriter is to make something that inspires people. To write things about my life that people can relate to. Whether it's a whole record or just one song for someone, I hope it can do that for them. Knowing that I have the ability to do that is inspiring to me.
With COBE, we can see things before the lights came on. While we probably will not rewrite the book of cosmology with this mission, we will write another chapter.
I didn't write to become a director, which many people do.
I had been a reporter for 15 years when I set out to write my first novel. I knew how to research an article or profile a subject - skills that I assumed would be useless when it came to fiction. It was from my imagination that the characters in my story would emerge.
While most of the music I write is instrumental, I love to use the human voice as another instrument.
The biggest trap that all performers and writers find is that when something really crazy, really bad happens, your mind immediately goes to, 'Can I write about this?' - which is good and bad.
I don't have any writing routine. Sometimes I go to my local coffee shop and I write there for some hours. Apart from that, I am traveling most of the time. I write in airports, trains, hotel rooms... I can write anywhere.
I write constantly about everything.
Artists who write songs... what they're going through usually comes through in their music.
I don't plot with huge detail, just big moments and important elements, and then I have a structure but can fly by the seat of my pants when I write.
I don't really care that much about genre labels. I tend to write across a variety of different genres.
If you write for somebody that you know, then your job is so much easier.
Cameron Crowe can write dialogue and shoot it with warmth and humor like nobody else.
Whatever you have a passion for, then you must do. If you want to write, write about something you know about.
I'm not in it for the money. I like music. I love to write music. I can't imagine myself not playing or singing or writing. It would just drive me crazy if I didn't.
I'll never sing something that I've never been through. So even if I didn't write it, I have to have at least experienced it.
The biggest influence? I've had several at different times - but the biggest for me was Bob Dylan, who was a guy that came along when I was twelve or thirteen and just changed all the rules about what it meant to write songs.
The core of me is country. It's what I love. It's what I write. Even when I sing pop stuff, I'm still singing it 'countrily.'
Do you know how long it took me to write 'For a Few Dollars More'? Nine days.
I was quite shy. I used to write stories all the time, and I think that was a worry for my parents.
With every song that I write, I compare it to the Beatles. The thing is, they only got there before me. If I'd been born at the same time as John Lennon, I'd have been up there.
I'd love to write for One Direction. I think they've done incredibly well.
Write every day even if it is just a paragraph.
I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child.
I'm sort of killing two birds with one stone here, getting to write for 'True Blood' and being able to put myself in a comic at the same time.
I can write, He floated up to the ceiling, and a baby rabbit came out of his pocket, grew wings, and flew away. And you will believe that it really happened. That's magic, isn't it?
I don't write songs about a specific, elusive thing. I write about love, and everyone knows what it is like to have your heart broken.
In life, everything just happens, and I believe even before we are born that our role in life has already been determined. My main ambition is to continue to write music, which helps me to evolve in a spiritual sense and hopefully to inspire others.
Who is the ally of the coach? Who's going to write, 'Man, that was a well-coached game.' Players win, coaches lose.
