Yes, I'm a reasonably good self-taught historian of the 1930s and '40s. I've never wanted to write about another time or place. I wouldn't know what to say about contemporary society.
Writing is not for me. I completely lose my sense of humor when I write. I become extremely pathetic, very sensational. Images give me possibilities that I don't have with words.
I just write and do what I think is funny. Sometimes, you do have it in your head about certain bits. There are certain jokes where I know if I did them in certain situations, it would irk people. There are times where I look at the news and see a story going on, and I'm like, 'Wow, if I tweeted this, I would get press if I wanted to.'
Some magazines are run from the top down, where the editor-in-chief decides what every article is going to be and who's going to write them, and then they're doled out. My idea is to do it the opposite way, to do it from the bottom up.
It's good to have a foothold in reality, a base somewhere that's always been a base. Sharman Macdonald once said she needs life to write; she can't write if she's just in theatre all the time. I'm the same way, I think. I've always felt that if my life was all about the job, I wouldn't be so good at the job.
I guess if I was made responsible for every single line of dialogue in a game and every single piece of textual visual detail, every sign or piece of graffiti, then yes, I think that would be comparable to the time and effort required to write a very long novel, indeed.
I never thought about what I would write. I just come from such a big family of storytellers.
I often find it maddening to live in America, in a way that is both amusing and horrifying to me. America clings to versions of itself that are absolutely hypocritical. I can't shake my outrage at it, so I write about it.
For the last 15 years that I have been performing, all I ever wanted to do was transcend poetry to the world. See, it wasn't enough for me to write a book. It wasn't enough for me to join a slam competition, and while those things hold weight, it wasn't the driving force that pushes the pen to the pad.
People don't know how to listen, and it's not their fault. In school, we learn how to read, we learn how to write - but nobody teaches you how to listen.
I became a script writer with absolutely no idea of how to write a script whatsoever. I still feel a bit of an outsider in that regard. If I can maintain that approach to screenwriting, it can continue to be enjoyable.
If there was anything that I learned with my own writing process, maybe there's too many choices what to write about. Just the amount of subject matter in the world these days; maybe that feels chaotic for me.
When I was bringing up a child, I taught myself to write in very short, concentrated bursts. If I had a weekend, or a week, I'd do unbelievable amounts of work.
I wanted to write something in a voice that was unique to who I was. And I wanted something that was accessible to the person who works at Dunkin Donuts or who drives a bus, someone who comes home with their feet hurting like my father, someone who's busy and has too many children, like my mother.
I write songs for myself, but I never keep them. I'm like, 'O.K., that was my therapy - it's out of my body now. I'm going to give it to somebody else so it can be their therapy, too.'
I write my own music. By myself, on a computer, I program guitar and piano.
Everybody has parents. As a dramatist, whenever you write a character, you must write their parents as well, even if the parents aren't there.
Read every sentence you write out loud. If it sounds boring, kill it.
The southern colonists were not preoccupied with their own historical significance and mostly did not bother even to make the records of births, marriages, and deaths that they required of themselves by law. Nor did they write accounts of what they were up to for the benefit of posterity.
As an online journalist, newswire journalist, newspaper writer, I wrote every day. My whole thing was, 'I have to write and report and write every day.' That was my thing.
I always write on unlined typing paper and write the first draft in longhand, using cheap Bic pens. I try to write about four pages a day, which usually yields a first draft in six months. I don't plot ahead of time, so I'm flying by the seat of my pants for the first draft.
In the early days, I really felt the pain of not being able to find information easily. I guess that helped me to develop an urge to write things like a search engine.
It's more difficult to write a song about having your heart ripped out of your chest while you're in love. Because it lacks honesty. And the honesty comes through in the music, it really does.
Every time you write anything, at least half your readers are going to disagree with you. A big part of sports writing is how you respond to that tension.
That's what fiction writers do: create characters and do terrible things to them for the entertainment of others. If they feel guilty enough, they write happy endings.
I met Quincy Jones in Seattle. We were kids together... liked each other when we met and have been close ever since. He wasn't writing when we met - in fact, I more or less started him off to write; voicing, harmony, and stuff like that.
Usually I write about what I care about, which is a weakness but I think also a strength.
I'm like a unicorn; I'm a midlist writer who hasn't done anything else but write. But because I wasn't amazingly famous, I didn't become Stephanie Meyer, or even a huge literary name like a Jonathan Franzen or a Joshua Ferris.
Write every day. Make writing a part of your life, but also don't be afraid of learning from others because I think you can. I still try to think of myself as a beginner because that way I can keep on learning.
You don't have to be dead to write a classic, and you don't have to be literary to be smart.
Early on, after gay liberation, there was an almost Stalinist pressure from gay critics and even gay readers to write about positive role models. We were never supposed to write negative things about gays, or else we were seen as collaborating with the enemy.
Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.
I like to write about things that don't reflect exactly on my life.
A poet could write volumes about diners, because they're so beautiful. They're brightly lit, with chrome and booths and Naugahyde and great waitresses. Now, it might not be so great in the health department, but I think diner food is really worth experiencing periodically.
As irony would have it, the very person who inspired me to write a memoir... was the only person to be ejected from it. My brother didn't appear in 'Out of Egypt.'
I have all these friends who just love therapy, and I always say the reason that I'm absolutely not in therapy is because then I wouldn't have anything to write.
