I realised that I had always been writing things that other people wanted me to write and not what I really wanted to write, so I felt like I was losing my way.
I can't do a film if I don't start with the writing.
The problem, for me, with the writing programs is that they produce a terrible uniformity of product.
The difficulty of writing a good theatre play set in new reality was even greater given that the level of similitude to life that is allowed in a film would not work on the stage.
Part of my job at 'The Economist' was writing about HIV, and that included the grim task of reporting on the state of the global epidemic.
I love film and have taken a stab at a screenplay. I love writing dialogue and found it highly enjoyable.
I remember being out here at the Sunset Marquis, and whoever knocked on the door, I would take that picture that I was writing and I would put that in the typewriter, so when I had the meeting, they would say: 'Oh, you're working on it right now?'
Every time I finish a book, I forget everything I learned writing it - the information just disappears out of my head.
Generally, I'm not writing about genomes or anything like that. But people underestimate the creativity you use in science and the rigor you need in music. They basically have the same path.
I've been writing songs since I was at least 20. That's what I wanted to do before I became a model.
When I'm writing, quite often I start having a good time when I see there's a chance to make myself look like a real jerk. I start chuckling and having an interesting, rather than a boring, time.
My favorite books are a constantly changing list, but one favorite has remained constant: the dictionary. Is the word I want to use spelled practice or practise? The dictionary knows. The dictionary also slows down my writing because it is such interesting reading that I am distracted.
I didn't really start writing music or lyrics or turning them into songs until I went to San Francisco.
You could take away the singing, and I am fine. But don't take away my gift of writing. It is the best way I can relate and express what I am feeling and what I am going through.
Whenever people used to ask me what I wanted to be when I was older, I would always say that I wanted to be a singer. When I was 12, I decided I would do something about it, so I started writing songs.
I've learned things about the craft of writing and about structuring a book and about character development and so on that I've just learned on the fly.
I started writing songs when I was 10. It was a natural way to express myself as a kid. It wasn't until I started listening to jazz, joined the choir and picked up a guitar that my little hobby became something far more serious.
I'm not good at anything except writing jokes. I wasn't good at sports, I wasn't good at anything artsy, ever. I think there was a real worry for a while about what I would be good at. I was just this chubby little Indian kid who looked like a nerd.
In 1975, I quit my tenure, and we moved from Ann Arbor to New Hampshire. It was daunting to pay for groceries and the mortgage by freelance writing - but it worked, and I loved doing it.
Alimony is the curse of the writing class.
The only real advice you can give anyone is to keep writing.
Usually my writing is very over the top and bombastic and very, like, 'I'm amazing! Look at me!'
It is a fairly serious thing that you're doing if you're writing about people who are still alive and who still have a role in public life. Sometimes you don't want to be reminded too much of the responsibility.
Writing about Jerusalem can be such a minefield.
You can spend a day in a library and feel: 'Great, I've done a day's work.' But it's only research, not writing.
For me, writing a short story is much, much harder than writing a novel.
Never be entirely idle; but either be reading, or writing, or praying or meditating or endeavoring something for the public good.
As an actor, I go where the good writing is. That's the bottom line.
A good day to me is writing from 6 A.M. 'til noon with a break to take my daughter to school. After lunch, if I still feel the momentum, I'll hit it again.
First of all, writing at best - certainly fiction writing - more and more I think is magic.
I will always be an actress. I couldn't see myself without acting. But I'd love to direct and keep writing. I don't think one has to be in place of the other.
I just had to find something else to fulfill me. Always being a singer and writing, it was a blessing. My brother started making music that was the kind of music I always saw myself singing.
I used to like writing for comedians - I enjoyed the challenge of making other people funny.
You can read a character that feels amazing, but if the world around it and all the writing around it - even the way the stage descriptions are written - don't feel just right, then you know there's no point in doing the project. No character is ever bigger than the whole film.
For the last 20 years of my life, I've had the mantra to do amazing parts with amazing people in amazing projects, so I'm attracted to good story, writing and character and good people. That's what I'm always searching for and I don't think that's ever going to change.
When one is writing a novel in the first person, one must be that person.
