I've always spent more time with a smile on my face than not, but the thing is, I don't write about it.
The essays are very solipsistic and self-absorbed, I'm totally conscious of that. To me, book writing is fun, and I basically just write about things that are entertaining to myself.
When you're playing such brilliant music every day, then the last thing you ever want to do is try to write something of your own that's crude and not as good.
When I was about 14, I got a tacky keyboard for 250 pounds and put on a drum machine and found I could write a song.
The writing process is more... it becomes a case of more like a diary for me. I mean, I write stuff down all day whenever I'm experiencing something that I think would be important for me to look at later on. You know, whether it be for writing lyrics or just for a memory, like, 'Oh, my gosh, I can't believe I was feeling that way at that time'.
You want your fans to like what you do, because it's coming from your heart and soul. You write it, you produce this thing. It's like your baby.
When I'm writing a novel, one of the things I do is get big poster boards. They're actually canvases that artists use. And I keep all the characters' names on them. If you write a big novel, there's a lot of characters.
Everyone thinks they're going to write one book of poems or one novel.
Mostly, I don't write overtly personal stuff.
I think it all comes back to being very selfish as an artist. I mean, I really do just write and record what interests me and I do approach the stage shows in much the same way.
I do want to go another way - to write something completely different.
These days, my subjects are murder and mayhem and other terrible things that happen to people - things that are even worse than cutting yourself shaving. And these are not the sorts of things you feel the need to experience before you write about them.
I kind of write about visual art the way Roger Angell writes about baseball, which is to say, you're writing about life: it's a somewhat focused, limited terrain in which you write about everything.
It's very hard to tell somebody how to write when they're so good, and they're a brilliant writer and a really good guy.
When you write a hit song, and you know it when it's done, it's one of the best feelings in the world.
I don't particularly like being angry about stuff. I'd rather hang out with my daughter and write my little books.
The one thing I've learned in the last ten years is that successful artists don't get paid to write and sing songs, they get paid for the psychological roller coaster they're going to have to ride. That's the hard work.
I like to reserve the right to write about whatever I like.
I don't care if my books don't sell abroad; we have a large enough market in our country. I write for Indian readers.
Everybody has a cartoon of themselves. Mine is: I write very fast, and I'm ruthlessly efficient with my time.
I just write what I wanted to write. I write what amuses me. It's totally for myself. I never in my wildest dreams expected this popularity.
It blows my mind the way Frank Miller can write.
And there are people who want to be writers because they love to write. And they care.
One reason to write a poem is to flush from the deep thickets of the self some thought, feeling, comprehension, question, music, you didn't know was in you, or in the world.
I let people say and write what they want.
What's fascinating is that when you write a script, it's almost a stream of consciousness. You have an idea that it means something, but you're not always sure what. Then when you get on the set, the actors teach you.
I'm driven to go out and find new things to write about.
The hardest novel to write was Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.
I don't plan to write another science book, but I don't plan not to. I do enjoy writing histories, and taking subjects that are generally dull and trying to make them interesting.
When I start to write, words have become physical presence. It was to see if I could bring that private world to life that found its first expression through reading. I really dislike the romantic notion of the artist.
You can never properly predict the future as it really turns out. So you are doing something a little different when you write science fiction. You are trying to take a different perspective on now.
I can write for any magazine now, in any voice. I can do it in two hours, I could do it in my sleep, it's like writing a grocery list.
Some of my educated Filipino friends were aspiring poets, but their aspirations were all in the direction of the United States. They had no desire to learn from the bardic tradition that continued in the barrios. Their ideal would have been to write something that would get them to Iowa, where they would study creative writing.
Occasionally I write a small piece or the odd lecture in English, and I teach in English, but my fiction is always written in German.
To write it, it took three months; to conceive it three minutes; to collect the data in it all my life.
It's part of what I do at my piano - the hymns. And then I write.
