The Ewoks were definitely a challenge of writing 'The Jedi Doth Return.' After having done so many things with characters who don't speak English, how was I going to make them stand out? Jedi is also rich with emotional material, particularly Darth Vader's transformation from the dark side back to the good.
The truth is, I initially became a singer-songwriter while still in my teens because it was the only way to guarantee that somebody on earth would sing the songs I was writing. Since then, I've performed just about everywhere: rock clubs, concerts halls, arenas, TV.
You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.
The whole point of writing is to have something in your gut or in your soul or in your mind that's burning to be written.
There are so many reasons why, for me, writing is superior to acting. One of them is anonymity. Writers can live relatively normal lives.
Writing for me is largely about rewriting.
I love writing songs. I love doing my radio show and talking to the fans and listening to what they have to say, but there's a certain responsibility that comes along with being given the gift of music. I take that seriously, but at the same time I try to use it to do something that makes a difference in a positive way.
I went to college, though I didn't take many writing courses.
I went through a big Alice Cooper phase, which was probably a major influence on my writing style later, especially after Plastic Surgery Disasters.
There are rhythmic ideas which sometimes only work up to a point. In writing there are moments when it just comes off the page, it's not just a collection of notes.
The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from.
Writing is a lonely business.
Surely the whole point of writing your own life story is to be as honest as you possibly can, revealing everything about yourself that is most private and probably most interesting for that very reason.
Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself - it is the occurring which is difficult.
There's a horrible stereotype of both the romance writer and the romance reader as somehow undereducated and unprofessional, when in fact there are a number of incredibly well-educated professional women who have chosen to leave their other careers and go into writing romance.
Writing - not being a writer with interesting habits - gets priority.
I made the mistake of writing something very, very short about Obama for this website that I write fiction for, and my father told me never do that again. And he was right. I have nothing to add to a political conversation because it's not my area.
If you haven't taken a writing class, take a writing class. I took every class that was available in my area. I went to conferences inside and outside my area to network with people. That's how I got my agent. I found my agent through another agent who was at a conference.
The writer's duty is to keep on writing.
My father was highbrow: writing long biographies of Dante and stuff like that. Ghostwriting sportsman memoirs? That was sort of the lowest of the low.
Until film is just as easily accessible as a pen or pencil, then it's not completely an art form. In painting, you can just pick up a piece of chalk, a stick, or whatever. In sculpture, you can get a rock. Writing, you just need a pencil and paper. Film has been a very elitist medium. It costs so much money.
I really, truly believe that writing comes out of the body; of course, the mind is working as well, but it's a double thing and that doubleness is united. I mean, you can't separate persona from psyche; you just can't do it.
Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.
I was a shy child, and when I was 13, I started wearing braces on my teeth. I used to be acutely self-conscious, and I think writing was a way of withdrawing into my own imagination.
Common hedging techniques include shorting stocks, buying put options, writing call options, and various types of leverage and paired transactions. While I do reserve the right to use these tools if and when appropriate, my firm opinion is that the best hedge is buying an appropriately safe and cheap stock.
After a while, the characters I'm writing begin to feel real to me. That's when I know I'm heading in the right direction.
You're under the gun at all times because it's live TV. A lot of time, between dress and air, you're having to come with an entire ending to your sketch that gets an even better, bigger laugh - which is terrifying... People are filing into the audience, and you're writing a new joke for the end of it.
I don't know if you've ever tried writing a Doctor Who story, but it's a lot more difficult than it initially appears, especially if you've got more than one assistant.
When you're writing these things, you're in a room making each other laugh, you really have very little sense of political correctness or incorrectness. This is a question that Europe tends to ask and America doesn't.
I moved to New York in the 1970s and started writing when I was at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.
I love Maira Kalman. She's an amazing illustrator and writer. I've loved her since I was in college, but when I moved to New York and experienced the same city she was drawing and writing about, I developed a whole new appreciation. Her work made me observe everything so much deeper and more joyfully.
The point of essays is the point of writing anything. It's not to tell people what they already think or to give them more of what they already believe; it's to challenge people, and it's to suggest alternate ways of thinking about things.
Writing is a very focused form of meditation. Just as good as sitting in a lotus position.
The next thing I wrote was in a writing class at night school. It was about a poor woman who worked at a dime store and who was all alone for Christmas in Laurel, Mississippi.
I think I began to like writing a lot more, and to be a better writer, when I did it for a while alone. It made me a little more confident about my style.
When I'm writing a woman character, I don't think, 'What would a woman do?' I just think, 'What would this character do in this situation?'
