A close girlfriend of mine and I have been writing and playing together for years and decided to make it official, so we formed a band called 'Everly.'
I was in lots of dodgy bands growing up and I always fancied myself in a band. But, you know, I was rubbish at writing music. So maybe one day I'll play a rock star, or punk rocker.
A major focus of 'Reality Hunger' is appropriation and plagiarism and what these terms mean. I can hardly treat the topic deeply without engaging in it. That would be like writing a book about lying and not being permitted to lie in it.
I would imagine that most of my writing is done spontaneously. I had no intention of writing, and then I'll just walk through the house, and I'll hear this melody, and I'll turn on the tape players and go back to it later on. Some days I'll get 3-5 songs a day.
My highest point was the first thing I won, a short story competition in a women's magazine in the Eighties. It was the first time I'd had my writing validated, and the first thing I'd ever shown anyone else.
Writing is the greatest thing about really good sitcoms.
I did a minor in creative writing in college, but I didn't start writing until I stayed at home with my own children.
Writing 'Schottenfreude' has reinforced the fact that there are few, if any, emotions that have not been experienced, and analyzed, by some of the world's greatest writers.
I stay out of politics because if I begin thinking too much about politics, I'll probably... drop writing children's books and become a political cartoonist again.
When it comes to writing musicals, you write the best piece you can. Then, its destiny is in the hands of the actors and the director.
I read a lot of scripts, and there's a lot of good writing and a lot of OK writing and a lot of crappy writing. And even with the really good writing, it doesn't necessarily speak to me.
I became a copy boy. Not for long. I started writing stories.
Every time I lock my people in a spacecraft or land them on an asteroid, the blood wells up again, and I'm writing horror. Horror's my default setting. It's also where I prefer to write.
I've never written a book with an outline or a predetermined theme. It's only in retrospect that themes or subjects become identifiable. That's the fun of it: discovering what's next. I'm often surprised by plot developments I would not have dreamed of starting out, but that, in the course of the writing, come to seem inevitable.
If we're really writing, we are exploring the unnamed emotional facets of the human heart. Not all emotions, not all states of mind have been named. Nor are all the names we have been given always accurate.
In the family, writing wasn't anything anyone understood - being a writer in the real world? How could it be? We didn't have those mirrors.
I confess, I do have to remind myself almost daily that there are people on this earth capable of reading, writing, eating and dressing themselves who believe their lives are ruled from billions of miles away, by the stars - and, of course, the planets.
Writing with a film in mind - writing like a screenplay - is a sureshot recipe for disaster.
When I'm writing, I spend all my time in The Grocer on Elgin buying ready-made meals; I think they are the only reason my husband and kids haven't left me.
The first accepted piece of writing is the most exciting. No other publishing experience matches it. Perhaps jaundice sets in, or expectations are raised, or one starts to think that one is better than is the truth.
Although my other ambition was to be a musical theater star (and I would attend college on a voice scholarship), writing was never far from my mind.
I don't see myself as an artist, as a writer. The sort of writing that I do, which is popular fiction, it's work. I have contracts to fulfil, and I have deadlines to meet.
I think photography is closest to writing, not painting. It's closest to writing because you are using this machine to convey an idea. The image shouldn't need a caption; it should already convey an idea.
I have been writing poetry since 1975. My first poetry book was published in 1986.
My writing has a lot of surprising twists.
My first job on the radio was writing jokes for a Baltimore DJ called Johnny Walker, who was sort of a '70s era shock jock who all the teenage boys listened to in my school.
Writing a song is actually quite easy. Writing a good one is very, very difficult.
I had never written anything. And I had never studied writing. So my motives were pure: I had a great story... a courtroom drama that I sort of fictionalized, and that became 'A Time to Kill.'
The smartest thing I did in law school: asking my future wife to go out dancing with me. The smartest thing I did when practicing law: quitting. The smartest thing I've done in writing: following my own head and writing what I wanted to write, and nothing but.
I have a great job writing for 'The Office,' but, really, all television writers do is dream of one day writing movies. I'll put it this way: At the Oscars the most famous person in the room is, like, Angelina Jolie. At the Emmys the huge exciting celebrity is Bethenny Frankel. You get what I mean.
This never happens, but I was writing with my friend Ryan Hurd and Eric Arjes, and we wrote this song called 'Last Turn Home.' The next day, my publisher emailed it to Tim McGraw's label. He listened to it, and I think within the week, he went into the studio and recorded it. And that never happens.
My three years at the NIH were critical in my scientific education. I learned an immense amount about the research process: developing assays, purifying macromolecules, documenting a discovery by many approaches, and writing clear manuscripts describing what is known and what remains to be investigated.
I'm actually doing what I like doing, which is mixing opera music and classical music with soul and folk. And I was writing and talking about what I've actually experienced, and I don't think that's very common.
I started writing regularly for 'The Atlantic' roughly around the time that Barack Obama got inaugurated.
Generally, I think most of my writing tends to have some kind of magical element to it. That's the way I can access the emotional life of the character.
My acting career wasn't going where I wanted it to. I wasn't getting good parts. I got so bored with myself that I started writing.
