A novel's whole pattern is rarely apparent at the outset of writing, or even at the end; that is when the writer finds out what a novel is about, and the job becomes one of understanding and deepening or sharpening what is already written. That is finding the theme.
I've done a lot of collaboration over the years, but right now I'm enjoying writing by myself and just being me again for a while.
I was a very good nurse, but I burned out after eight years or so because it wasn't what I truly wanted to do. Writing is what I belong to.
We always feel pretty creative as far as writing songs. We write them together; we just get in a room, or on occasion in Flea's garage. We just sort of improvise, like jazz musicians.
I don't really have a drive toward being a director at all. Not that I wouldn't rule it out, but I just don't think my instincts lie necessarily in a very visual way. But I am very interested in storytelling, narrative and character development, so writing is something that I absolutely want to do.
The hardest part of writing is the first draft, and the closer you get to your deadline, the messier your workspace becomes - but that's the same with any creative outlet.
When the label came to me to say, 'would you like to do another record,' I said, 'Well I got these sixteen songs sitting here, so let's do it.' And that was pretty much it... I never stopped writing, it's just the way that the business is now; you just try to find a different model.
I have never been depressed or thrown a plate, which I attribute to the cathartic effects of writing books about people whose lives are more grueling than mine.
I am very sentimental, very emotional, but never in my writing; I am very tough.
In college, I think I probably positioned myself as an aspiring writer, meaning I dressed sort of extravagantly and adopted all the semi-Byronic affectations, as if I were writing, although I wasn't actually doing any writing.
I'm writing a new love story, set in eastern North Carolina. Surprise, surprise, huh?
A sense of place is very important in writing.
My failure, during the first five or six years of my art training, to get set in the right direction, and the disappointment which it caused me, drove me the more persistently into writing as an alternative.
Writing, for me, is an inherent part of understanding the material on a deeper level.
The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it.
It's hard to decide how to match words to music. It's not like it's twice the work. It's always difficult for me to explain to the composer what I'm looking for. I'm not a professional; I lack even basic knowledge about writing music.
I just have to proceed as usual. No matter what happens, nothing helps with the writing of the next book.
I was really inspired while I was pregnant and I wrote a whole album for my baby. I wanted to write a kids album that didn't annoy parents. I used The Beatles 'Rocky Raccoon' as sort of a starting place for my writing.
Action is greater than writing. A good man is a nobler object of contemplation than a great author. There are but two things worth living for: to do what is worthy of being written; and to write what is worthy of being read.
I did six series for the BBC and that was enough. I've been writing for ten years, which is more challenging artistically.
My singing is my hobby. It's me and my brother. We just enjoy writing music.
I don't mind playing my music live. It's fun. But what my real passion is is writing music.
I'm writing in English; I'm writing for a Western audience, but the people I'm surrounded by in my daily life are mostly non-white.
I sort of was good at writing essays. I was never very good at mathematics, and I was never very good at algebra. I loved science, but I wasn't sure of it.
The comforts come from my movie and television writing. It is unusual to live this well simply from books.
When I started writing, I didn't have the common sense to use a pseudonym, so I write under my own name. If I did have a pen name, though, it would be something very historical - something that sounds very sort of Regency... Sophia something.
I never feel more myself than when I'm writing; I never enjoy any day more than a good writing day.
Twitter could save a lot of money by writing its executives' names on their doors with pencil instead of fancy placards. Like an episode of 'Suits,' Twitter execs come, go, change jobs and disappear under black clouds every few minutes. Office administration costs must be astronomical!
Writing sessions can last an hour or sixteen hours, depending on how it's going.
What I felt was, if you spend your life just writing fiction, you are going to falsify your material. And the fictional form was going to force you to do things with the material, to dramatize it in a certain way. I thought nonfiction gave one a chance to explore the world, the other world, the world that one didn't know fully.
People have these incredible expectations. So instead of being inspired by, say, Joni Mitchell's music, I look at it and say to myself, 'I'm going to quit - why would I think of writing or performing after listening to that?'
I've always felt very sympathetic from the first days of writing about women that, whatever the woman, whether she is trying to be a woman in the conventional sense or breaking the boundaries, those struggles are quite difficult.
When I was writing my column, I would almost always be recognized when I was in a restaurant, even if I was reviewing it and had booked under a fake name, so free stuff would start coming out of the kitchen on a conveyer belt, fantastic wines would be opened at my table. Now I can't even get a reservation on the pizza joint on the corner.
The United States has made a massive effort since the end of the Second World War to secure the dominance of its films in foreign markets - an achievement generally pushed home politically, by writing clauses into various treaties and aid packages.
The real danger of writing a great song when you're on something is that it might get you thinking that the only way to repeat that is by only writing when you're high.
I'm quite good at not writing.
