You write a scene, and it works or it doesn't. It's immediate.
My mom used to ask me when I was gonna write a happy song. I still tell her that it's when I start to write really happy-sounding songs that everyone needs to start worrying.
Although my stories are all very different on the surface, I like to write stories about characters struggling with big problems. I'm always reminded, no matter how different from me one of my characters is from me on the surface, how we're all pretty much the same underneath.
I hadn't ever worked with an 'editor' until I was 26 - although that could be partly chalked up to the MFA vs. NYC thing, where I came up through institutions that encouraged writers to write privately for a long, long time and not sully themselves with concerns about audience or the business side of writing.
I always read what I write out loud, and I did that long before any radio thing. My editor finds that unusual.
Sporadic thoughts will pop into my head and I'll have to go write something down, and the next thing you know I've written a whole song in an hour.
Every song I write is autobiographical and is about people, and that's one of the things that gets complicated. You have to decide where's your place as a songwriter.
I like the quiet it takes to pursue an idea the way I pursued 'Hamilton,' but I couldn't write a book, because there's no applause at the end of writing a book.
I won't let people write anything they want to about me.
Not that many people, even contemporary writers, write about right now.
I don't want to go out hunting for dismal topics to write about.
My greatest achievement is being able to write records that are real snapshots of what's going on in my life. I won't repeat myself for the sake of commerce, or to please other people.
I'm a cartoonist. I write and draw comic books and graphic novels. I'm also a coder.
I can't imagine doing anything without being an improviser. I can't imagine trying to write or act or direct without what improvising offers you.
I like to write, and I would love to be a screenwriter one day and a director.
I write because writing is something that I have to do. And it doesn't matter whether people like it or not. When I write, I feel the pressure and anxiety that come with taking an empty piece of paper and trying to fill it with something from your own consciousness.
I wanted to write and direct movies and not be forced to adapt them from a bestselling book.
As writers, we don't just need to write about poverty or war or the immigrant experience.
I play and I've played in heavy bands, but when I write for myself, I don't particularly feel like writing huge rock riffs. It just doesn't work for me and my voice.
Being known as a writer did change the relationships I had with directors. The rap on actors is that they always want to inflate their parts. But when directors know you write screenplays and have a different view of things, you really get invited into the huddle in a much fuller way. And those collaborations end in friendships.
People write fiction in their minds all the time - every time we read a 'human interest' news story, or a true crime tale, we find ourselves fascinated because we're trying to understand why people behave the way they do, why they make the choices they do, how we become who we become.
The sublime moment seems to be only a product of allowing yourself to get through, to get to a lot of stuff in your life, write about a lot of stuff and not edit yourself. That is a great lesson to learn for anybody that writes or creates in anyway, to be able to make something without being good or bad.
I write fast, I write beautifully, I write convincingly.
I don't have a life, really. I take my kids to school, and I go home, and I write. Then I go pick my kids up, make them dinner, put them to bed, and write some more.
I write incredibly slowly. And, on top of that, I spent my entire youth and twenties working like a dog, so one of the things that happened when I finished 'Drown' was that I got busy living. I'd never travelled, I'd never seen anything. So I did as much travelling as my job teaching would allow.
Write what you know.
A bad book and good marketing won't work, the same way a good book and bad marketing will also not work. There is no choice in the matter that if you need to write a good book, you also need to have good marketing for it.
The hardest thing is spending twelve hours a day accommodating the rest of the world, then going home at night and criticizing it. I would be curious about what I'd write if I didn't have to worry about offending.
The single best piece of advice I give to aspiring writers is to always write about things that they know. I suggest that they write about people and places and events and conflicts they are familiar with. That way their writing will be real and hopefully readers will respond to it. I try to take my own advice.
People sometimes ask who I would cast in my books and I never have any idea. I don't think I could ever write a book thinking of it as a movie the whole time. This would be like building a house and filling it with furniture just so you could have blueprints.
I've always wanted to write an early reader. When I wrote my first novel, my goal was to make it an early reader, but it grew beyond the category.
The older I get, the more my curiosity grows, and every book I write is a new exploration.
It really surprises me that people in this day and age still write such busy music and fill up every space with layer upon layer of sound... it's like musical landfill.
The team goals are always more important than individual goals. The ultimate goal is to win the Super Bowl and to do something special. The other little goals that you guys write up, those things take care of itself in the midst of playing football.
I'm not very articulate. The reason I write is because I don't talk.
I actually come from comics, and I'm big on comics. I was reading 'Walking Dead' from the beginning. Then just being on the show, I was really lucky to work on episodes like 'Pretty Much Dead Already' and 'Clear.' I worked a lot on episodes that I didn't write.
