I wanted to write for all children, even those kids who might see language as a threatening thing, even if English is their second language.
I don't read books on how to write screenplays just because I'm stubborn. So it's all sort of made up.
I write songs about real things... The subject dictates the mood and it goes from there, really.
I mean, what would I be doing if I couldn't write? But that fortunately hasn't proved to be the case and I can read any day. I still read a lot, and I can write any day, but much more slowly and fewer words.
I just do the best I can and write something interesting, to tell stories in an interesting way and move forward from there.
It doesn't matter what kind of book you write - you ought to write it well and with some kind of style and elegance.
I tell students they will know they are getting somewhere when a scene is so painful they can just barely bring themselves to write about it. A writer has to draw blood.
In real life, people fumble their words. They repeat themselves and stare blankly off into space and don't listen properly to what other people are saying. I find that kind of speech fascinating but screenwriters never write dialogue like that because it doesn't look good on the page.
I'm trying to get in the habit of, you know, picking up a book and learning how to write my feelings down, not my feelings but my thoughts, about things, and hopefully I'll moving toward the writing and directing thing soon.
I wrote my first sucio story, as I call them, in 1997. This was always my 'cheater's book,' my book about sucios desgraciados. My plan was to write a book about how people deal with love and loss.
It takes me a long time writing books. It takes me about five years to write a book, and when I'm done, the last thing I want to do is to do it again.
The parts I enjoy playing aren't really available to me. So I have to write them.
A mission statement is not something you write overnight... But fundamentally, your mission statement becomes your constitution, the solid expression of your vision and values. It becomes the criterion by which you measure everything else in your life.
If Mozart were around now he would write a killer rock song.
Now I'm writing about contemporary Los Angeles from memory. My process was to hang out, observe, research what I was writing about, and almost immediately go back to my office and write those sections. So it was a very close transfer between observation and writing.
It's a very romantic sentiment, but to think that you would die if you didn't write, well, I would definitely choose to not write and live.
To be able to write a play a man must be sensitive, imaginative, naive, gullible, passionate; he must be something of an imbecile, something of a poet, something of a liar, something of a damn fool.
I try to be upbeat. I read this book which tells you to write down everything that you're grateful for each day. Now I'm constantly noticing all the little things that make me joyful.
I write music to please myself. Hopefully the director's enjoying it too.
I don't intend to write the same kind of book for the rest of my life because I feel I would not be satisfied only writing in one mode.
Most books are surplus to the world's requirements, and I am going to sound very conceited here, but I am trying to write books that aren't just using up trees.
I don't think you can write - at least not well - if you don't love stories, love the written word.
I am flying back to New York as I write this. I will never forget these wonderful 35 days and I would go back to Copenhagen in a heartbeat to work there again.
The trick to my writing, it turned out, was doing so exclusively in bed. The minute I even dared to discipline myself and write at the desk, I produced mounds of nonsense. Yet, sitting in bed, I wrote easily, effortlessly, fluidly. I became the master of perfect indiscipline.
No matter what you write or choreograph, you feel it's not enough.
I count myself as not only just an artist, not only as a singer, but a business woman. I write my own songs; I write my own video treatments, manage other artists. I write for other artists; it's not just about getting on stage and singing a song.
It's a juicy thing to say we're building a phone, which is why people want to write about it. But it's so clearly the wrong strategy for us.
I tend to plan as I write. And I want to leave myself open and the character open to keep on going until it seems to be the time to stop.
I don't write a quick draft and then revise; instead, I work slowly page by page, revising and polishing.
Sometimes, I write '60s or '80s style pop songs.
Some people take 10 years to write a book and some can do one in under a year.
Going from someone playing 15-people venues to performing at the Grammys, it was this giant leap and sort of showed me it was possible with what I wanted to do and the kind of music I wanted to write and artist I want to be to impact a lot of people.
When I set out to write 'Sanctus,' all I wanted to do was craft a piece of high quality entertainment.
I wanted to write a story that demanded the viewer's attention.
I just write the books that I think I would want to read.
'Banshee' was kind of a lark. I was getting paid pretty well to write movies no one was making - and so I decided to try my hand at TV and get paid much less to actually get something produced.
