I think I am less self-assured when I write English than I would be if I were writing in my first language. I have to test each sentence over and over to be sure that it's right, that I haven't introduced some element that isn't English.
In writing 'William Shakespeare's Star Wars,' I had the freedom to go beyond the original script and add asides, soliloquys and even new scenes. The main characters all get a soliloquy or two - or in Luke's case, several.
I never expected to earn money out of writing. In fact, the idea of getting published was too bourgeois. Then, in England, I realised that writing a book was something you could do without it being laughable.
I can be a little OCD when it comes to my writing.
Writing songs is kind of like a wrestling match to me. You have to pin it down and make it do what you want it to do.
I love great writing. I like interesting characters. I like to work with people who push me to be better, to elevate my game.
That's what I like most about writing fiction over journalism: the easy metaphors!
I really like writing for specific projects. It's a whole different way of writing when you have certain guidelines and a theme you're writing to. It's very inspiring.
As long as it's making you happy and you're enjoying it, then you should never stop writing music. Whether it's going to take you somewhere, viewed by other people, or it's literally you in a bedroom at home, it should be something that you do for yourself.
My writing has always been what you call 'narrative fiction' in the sense that it's got very strong plots and twists at the end.
In the early '90s, I was disillusioned after the blasts and riots in Mumbai. I was in college and started thinking that religion was the root cause of all these evils. While my father told me not to blame religion because of a few bad people, I wasn't convinced. The faith was restored after I started writing my first book.
I hate it when people don't recognize the work of women as being universal, or having any import to the world at large, as opposed to men's work, which is generally tends to be seen as more universal - men's writing about their own experience tends to be put in a broader context.
The thing that's really cool for me about Miami Beach is you have this dichotomy between sunlight and family and happiness and innocence and then at night, darker, stranger mob conspiracy stuff sort of comes out. It seems like a storytelling engine. You can just keep writing about how those two worlds smash into each other.
Writing so that I can act became a way of having not more control over my future but not having to wait for permission. You can choose yourself. Hmm, who should play this part? I nominate me!
I often write two books simultaneously. Usually one of them starts out as a fun experiment designed to give me a daily break from the real book I'm writing. And then that becomes a real book too.
On the one occasion where I did try writing a screenplay, I found the rewriting just unendurable.
Choreography is writing on your feet.
Our ad campaign with Pfizer is educational. Lipitor is the most widely prescribed drug in the country. For every prescription, there is a doctor writing it. It's a huge vote of confidence.
It's hard to write music for specific things, because I'm always writing just to write.
For me a Writing Day was an occasion for self-reproach and panic, a time to lament the passing of the years, stare out of windows and remember that even those famous late starters Joseph Conrad and George Eliot had started by the age I was now.
I was always the observer, trying to understand what was going on. I was always the new kid. Writing became my safe place.
I work on one book at a time. And yes, I am immersed. Six days a week for four to six hours a day. In between books, I stop writing for as much as two to three months, but during that time, I do research and think, plot and plan the book.
I've been gearing up for this future of writing a lot of new music by digging into my favorite old stuff, and twisting it around and highlighting the things I really love.
The art of songwriting is just stumbling your way to something really special, and you don't know what you're going to write until you are writing it. There is no formula. And, sometimes, you really have to work at it and hunker down.
Writing is a great love of mine.
I definitely in filmmaking more and more find writing and directing a means to harvest material for editing. It's all about editing.
I'm not one of those true writers who can't bear not to be writing. Yet it's one of the most important things in my life.
'Sanctus' was done on speculation. I had no agent or publisher. I was being sensible, I suppose, by writing a standalone novel. I figured if that one didn't work, no one would be interested in reading a sequel.
All these tales of people sitting down and composing symphonies just as though they were writing a letter are very much exaggerated; at least, it isn't that way in my work.
All my journalism, all my books are first person, and it's all memoir. Even when I'm writing about the oil spill in the Gulf, it's all first person there.
'Writing' is the wrong way to describe what happens to words in a movie. First, you put down words. Then you rehearse them with actors. Then you shoot the words. Then you edit them. You cut a lot of them, you fudge them, you make up new ones in voice-over. Then you cut it and throw it all away.
A young person, or someone who's writing in a different way - in some ways you could say, eventually someone will find them. Eventually someone will hear them. But it's good a lot of young people persevere. Because sometimes you have to send something out a thousand times before anyone recognizes your value.
Critics can say what they like about the films, but very often, there's a certain expectation of documentaries that they're supposed to be like PowerPoint presentations. I see documentaries as movies. So when I see some critics writing that we could have done without the recreations altogether - well, perhaps.
Rather than writing about my experiences with other people, 'Ugly Cherries' is the first song I've ever written about myself. It's a confrontation: an attempt to unpack my own queerness with humor and self care.
I've always been very grateful that enough people have enjoyed reading what I've written that I've been able to pursue writing professionally.
I was writing very early, like I was involved in our high school literary magazine, which was called 'Pariah.' The football team was the Bears, and the literary magazine was 'Pariah.' It was great. It was definitely a real sub-culture. But I wrote stories for them.
