When writing for a mass audience, put a fact in every sentence.
I consider my films to be poems that are all as personal as my writing and as hand-made.
I started writing prose before I started writing television. Then 'Breaking Bad' came around, and to me, writing 'Breaking Bad' is like writing a novel each season. So it's been very creatively satisfying writing for the show.
I've become a day writer: most people start as night writers, and I used to be, but something happened to my endocrine system. I do miss the 3 A.M. writing jags.
I've tried every which way for writing lyrics - everything from using really bizarre imagery and metaphors, sort of obscuring the facts of what I'm singing about, all the way over to a song like 'Losing My Mind,' where you're just reading my thoughts as they're occurring.
I have a 10-year track record of writing for the Jewish community.
I am never writing a breakup record again, by the way. I'm done with being a bitter witch.
When I turned 14, I became very obsessed with writing songs, and it took over my existence.
On the other hand when you are someone who records their own songs you are basically stuck writing for one voice and for one style that can stifle you a bit. It's a real trade off.
At this stage, my chief professional goal is simply to keep on writing and making a living at it.
I'm trying my hand at writing. I'm writing a couple of projects for HBO, a half hour comedy and a miniseries.
Co-creation is much more work than writing somewhere in a hidden corner and then publishing your content. However, the benefits outweigh the costs.
Do activities you're passionate about - which make your heart and soul feel perky - including things like working out, cooking, painting, writing, yoga, hiking, walking, swimming, being in nature, being around art, or reading inspiring books.
The only joy I had was writing what was. That book was. It no longer amuses me to be all the things I was when I wrote that. But it is my story as I was then.
I was a businessman for 16 years of my life, so when I started writing, I wanted to keep my literary identity separate.
Writing works when publications are writing and serving the best interest of their users; numbers are good yardstick but not a way to compensate a person.
Most of the time I feel stupid, insensitive, mediocre, talentless and vulnerable - like I'm about to cry any second - and wrong. I've found that when that happens, it usually means I'm writing pretty well, pretty deeply, pretty rawly.
Favorite subject? I would have to say creative writing.
It's always struck me as unfair that writing has so little sensation when it's going well.
I started writing when I was about 20, 21 maybe.
Art comes from a visceral need and is usually generated by something I have seen; writing comes from something that happens in my head and my heart.
I so find Harold Pinter and David Mamet's writing to be exciting, and obviously there aren't that many female - at least with Mamet, there aren't that many good female roles. But I always thought it would be interesting to play one of the guy roles.
Once I start writing about something, it goes off rather fast, and sometimes details which might be interesting such as what the room looked like or what somebody said that was not exactly on the same subject tend to get lost.
My writing is a very authentic journey of discovery. I'm going out there to learn who I am. My readers, consequently, take the same journey as my protagonist.
While I was writing Wild Swans I thought the famine was the result of economic mismanagement but during the research I realised that it was something more sinister.
I realized all the writing I love lives in the gray area.
Part of the joy of writing for kids is that you have to have a real adventure story. You can get really involved in the fantastic in a way that perhaps you can't so much in adult fiction.
By ignoring a lot of American culture you can write more interesting stories. Unfortunately, if you were writing about America as it is, you'd be writing about a lot of people sitting in front of television sets.
Honestly, I don't focus on what my writing is called. I don't mean to sound artsy and pretentious, I just really can't think of things in that way. For me, the point is telling a story that keeps people up past bedtime, while hopefully exploring ideas that resonate.
I am always worried that over-planning and outlining will kill the magic of writing; most of the world I created in 'California' occurred via good old sexy sentence-making.
Being so honest in my writing is cathartic.
When I did stand-up at U.C.B., and I had a blog for a couple of years that started my writing career, 'Totally Confident and Completely Insecure,' it was the same kind of self-deprecating humor and stories about being out in L.A. and being treated like a loser at a hair salon because you are not famous.
Writing is not getting any easier or harder. I think I know what I want more, I know what I'm looking for.
You reach a point when you say to yourself, 'Do I want to keep doing this?' There are other things on my plate I want to do - I've been writing a play; I've been neglecting my standup.
I attribute the black tones in my films to Stephen King, Tim Burton, Joe Hill and Richard Matheson. However, most of my writing is influenced by mental health. I'm incredibly passionate about shedding light on the stigmas associated with mental illnesses.
All writing is the same: It's just making up lies until it starts to sound like the truth. That's what I do.
