If I had been a good student and an achiever, I might have been excited by a more systematic approach to writing than what I do.
I am a person who can't teach writing or make a living in any public way, as I get confused when interrupted or overstimulated. In a classroom or crowded room, I all but blank out. So my only income is from novels.
I'm very interested in writing an actual series, that doesn't have too much to do with my music - a world I create that has characters in it. I'm just trying to get there by doing things that I want to do.
I love 'Girls.' The writing is so clever. I think Lena Dunham is a genius. I can't believe she writes it, directs it and stars in it. It's really exciting that a young woman has been able to achieve all of that.
Reading and writing are connected. I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.
As an actor, my main focus is finding good writing and attacking a good role.
Hard writing makes easy reading.
But if you read Jane Austen, you know that she had a wicked sense of humor. Not only was she funny, but her early writing was very dark and had a gothic tone to it.
Some of my best experiences are with writer/directors. Guy Ritchie is one. I feel they have a clearer view of what they want to do. They haven't got to try and interpret someone's writing; it's all theirs. I really admire that.
For me, writing is a kind of coping mechanism.
I primarily read fiction, and I read a good many wonderful books while writing 'The Visibles.'
It's one thing to be writing in South or Latin America, where, except for Brazil, every country, however small and hard to find on a map, speaks Spanish, but quite another to be writing in, say, Hungary, a landlocked nation of 10 million people, with a language that very few people outside Hungary can read or speak.
I never know, when I start writing a story, what's going to happen, or how it will all get sorted out.
'Lonesome Dove' by Larry McMurtry and 'The Poisonwood Bible' by Barbara Kingsolver have stuck with me throughout my life, and I think that says a lot about an author's writing.
Oh, I just tend to believe in things when I'm writing them. For instance, when I was writing 'Doctor Dee,' I believed in magic. And when I wrote 'Hawksmoor' I believed in psychic geography. But as soon as I type the last full stop, I'm back to being a complete blank again.
I am a fifth-generation American, but from a young age, I went to yeshiva. I spent 12 hours a day with rabbis, and I think in Yiddish. To this day, I have to go back and unravel my writing and polish it so everyone doesn't sound like an old Jewish woman.
I went to grad school with the grand plan of getting my Ph.D. and writing weighty, Tudor-Stuart-set historical fiction - from which I emerged with a law degree and a series of light-hearted historical romances about flower-named spies during the Napoleonic wars.
I don't make my living writing; I make my living as a producer and as a director.
Writing the past is never a neutral act. Writing always asks the past to justify itself, to give its reasons... provided we can live with the reasons. What we want is a narrative, not a log; a tale, not a trial. This is why most people write memoirs using the conventions not of history, but of fiction.
I love when I'm writing and I'm cringing because I know I'm doing something right.
When I say that basically writing is a hard hustle, I don't mean that it is a bad life, if one can get away with it. It's the miracle of miracles to make a living by the typer.
There have been many days when I have had to work up to writing 'Irredeemable' because I just didn't feel like wallowing in that world, feeling those emotions... but that's the process.
I really enjoyed playing Freddie Cork. People are always scared to approach me because of the character I played in 'Brotherhood.' The writing was very smart.
I was Paul Schrader's assistant for six months before I went to film school, and he's very much about knowing what's going to happen on every page before you even start writing dialogue - the entire plot and character arcs are mapped out.
My first attempt at writing a novel was horrible. I had to throw it away. But I stuck with the idea, which is what became 'The Invisible Circus.'
It's so tedious writing cookbooks or writing the recipes because I've never been much of a measurer. But to write a book, you have to measure everything.
I feel like I've grown up a bit. I'm a bit more confident, and I've been reading more, and I've had a little more time to myself. I went on this writing trip to gather my thoughts about where and who I am in this world, and why we're all here.
There's no way the writing staff of 'Game of Thrones' haven't read 'The Art of War.' There's definitely an influence on 'Game of Thrones' from this book in both a general way and on the character of Lord Baelish and his strategies.
When writing 'Behind the Mask,' I opened up on every level. Hopefully, even the more knowledgeable fans, who really know me, will be surprised when they read it.
I've always done more than I ever thought I would. Becoming a professor - I never would have imagined that. Writing books - I never would have imagined that. Getting a Ph.D. - I'm not sure I would even have imagined that. I've lived my life a step at a time. Things sort of happened.
I can honestly say, there was a moment when I was writing 'Upstream Color' where I fell so hard for what it was becoming that I couldn't think of anything else. I was absolutely secure in this story in the way I'm rarely secure about anything else in my life.
Human writing reflects that of the universe; it is its translation, but also its metaphor: it says something totally different, and it says the same thing.
I was always writing the books that I wanted to write, books that demanded to be written at the time. But, like most writers, you start off feeling your way.
I worked with some directors, and it was really collaborative, and I was sort of writing with them. I was giving so many pieces of myself to their movies, I thought, 'It's about time I use my own voice for me, and establish my own voice.' So I knew I wanted to make films.
When I started writing music on the guitar, it started off very folky because of my limited ability to play. It was slow, soft melodies. But then, as I got better on the guitar, I started exploring different sounds.
I never expected my writing to become as popular as it did.
