I am violently untidy. My desk is overcrowded. I write my first drafts in longhand in a long notebook using a plastic throwaway fountain pen. Then I work on a word processor using a different desk and a different room.
Poetry was one of the things that interested me most as I was growing up. I used to write it in my head all the time. I still think the very greatest pleasure in life is to write a poem.
I had to write something and couldn't think of a plot, so I decided to write a Cinderella story because it already had a plot! Then, when I thought about Cinderella's character, I realized that she was too much of a goody-two-shoes for me, and I would hate her before I finished ten pages.
Never write anything that does not give you great pleasure. Emotion is easily transferred from the writer to the reader.
I write pretty quickly. Write pretty fast. I was an old press service man. That was part of the necessity of that occupation.
Beyond that, I seem to be compelled to write science fiction, rather than fantasy or mysteries or some other genre more likely to climb onto bestseller lists even though I enjoy reading a wide variety of literature, both fiction and nonfiction.
I write a lot of songs people don't hear. I really just enjoy the process. I finish 'em all. I don't think there's a whole lot of difference between the bad ones and the good ones.
All these things that enter your head are assignments. You write them up and then throw them out there and if someone wants to do it, your assignment is done.
I can't write without a reader. It's precisely like a kiss - you can't do it alone.
I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, not to make them American. Iraqis will write their own history and find their own way.
Vivian Abenshushan and Veronica Gerber write brilliant books that defy generic conventions.
The only really safe thing to do is to write a diary of where you've been, what time you went to bed, what you ate. If I wrote honestly about everything I think it'd be a disaster. It would cause a lot of trouble.
I write a lot in my head. I've never been driven to write things down.
I like all music. Well, I don't like music that was created to make money. I don't really like bands that don't write their own music.
For a while there, our writing got really edgy... I've always written about experiences, so when your life gets a bit crazy, you start to write songs that are a bit edgy.
Human experience is infinite. Lives are infinite. Stories are infinite. Just because one story has gravity in it doesn't mean you can't write a different one with gravity in it.
I enjoyed having a reputation as being wild, but these days I try not to worry about what people think in the privacy of their own brain or what they write in the bizarre publicity of their own newspapers, because all of those things are meaningless.
I believe that people who do not vote in this country have no right to complain about the government that we are now living under. By the same token, if you don't really vote in television, you're never going to have your way. Write a letter to the president of the network.
There's probably a couple someones that are gonna hear the songs and go, 'I think that might have been about me,' or, 'I know it's about me.' I do play that pretty close to the vest. I don't think I'm ever gonna write a song and drop somebody's name in it.
I never wanted to write the sort of song that said, 'Look at how abnormal and crazy and out there I am, man!'
I was born in Amersham, England on 6/4/58. My family moved to Australia when I was eight, and I went to Box Hill High School and then Melbourne High School. I liked to draw and write at school, and I liked books by J.R.R. Tolkien, A.A. Milne and Kenneth Grahame.
I try to write about a woman finding her self-respect, valuing herself, and liking herself again. But what one desperately wants now is to write a proper novel.
At 18, my first short story was published - I was paid a penny a word by a science fiction magazine. I continued to write, and five years later I published my first novel, 'Sweetwater.'
Writing has always felt like a compulsion. Even at high school there'd be times when people would ask me if I wanted to go and hang out and I'd sit home and write instead.
I do not see how a man can work on the frontiers of physics and write poetry at the same time. They are in opposition.
You just write about things that happen.
When you write down your ideas you automatically focus your full attention on them. Few if any of us can write one thought and think another at the same time. Thus a pencil and paper make excellent concentration tools.
Some newer writers worry about books set in Canada having a big appeal, but it has never been an issue for me. I haven't wanted to write in the States because I don't know the States.
Songwriting is like editing. You write down all this stuff - all this bad, stupid stuff - and then you have to get rid of everything except the very best.
The only reason I would write a sequel is if I were struck by an idea that I felt to be equal to the original. Too many sequels diminish the original.
I've worked so hard for so long, and everyone's reaction has made me feel like... almost like they trust me, which is just a wonderful feeling. It pushes me to write things better and better.
Bach and Beethoven, all of them, they had to write something to please the upper structure, those with money and power.
If my characters travel somewhere, I generally write about a place I know to give the scenes more authenticity.
Children can write poetry and then, unless they're poets, they stop when reach puberty.
How does one happen to write a poem: where does it come from? That is the question asked by the psychologists or the geneticists of poetry.
I am very happily employed as a full-time software engineer; I travel a lot, and I write books along with this here weekly TechCrunch column; and I still find the time to work on my own software side projects.
