Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Writing for the stage is different from writing for a book. You want to write in a way that an actor has material to work with, writing in the first person not the third person, and pulling out the dramatic elements in a bigger way for a stage presentation.
You spend all this time inside, alone, writing. And then it becomes about travel and new places and new people. And I do love talking to people about the book, but ideally, I like a little less disruptive lifestyle, I like it when things are more organized.
I write from seven to about noon. I used to try to write longer, but I read and I found that I was always getting myself tired by working in the afternoon and then I was just throwing out what I wrote in the afternoon, so writing then was counterproductive.
There's more substance in my prose and my poetry than in all my films together. Writing is a more direct way of expressing yourself because, in cinema, you always have finances, organization, actors, technical apparatus and all that stuff coming in between.
I thought I was going to write fiction but I fell backwards into non-fiction. It started when I got locked out of two apartments in one day and I told the story to some friends, one of whom worked in the 'Village Voice' and asked me to turn it into an essay.
For me, writing never gets easier. It's always hard work. It doesn't matter how many words you wrote the day before, or how many novels you've completed in the last decade: every day you start fresh again with that same blank page, or that same blank screen.
The most important thing in writing process is the vibe cause if you on a roll, if you feel it you just feel it. And it's all about the atmosphere, the people around you, you know, everything. You got to be clear headed in that and have a perfect atmosphere.
My website inspired me to create my book club and provides me with a creative outlet where I can write about things that interest me. It's a platform where I can present ideas or new ventures and get feedback straight from the people who mean the most to me.
If you don't wake up and have your own thing, whether it's writing or reading or traveling or acting or dancing or singing or being a mother or a father, something that drives you, then it's all worth nothing. One of the key elements in happiness is purpose.
Under the Dodd-Frank law, the SEC got the lion's share of the rules to write, more than 100 rules, and we have done an extraordinary amount of that. Eighty percent have been either proposed or adopted. So, a lot, a lot accomplished but of course, more to do.
Maybe I'll just write books. I'd like to make another movie, but I don't want to go back and [do] what they want you to do, to make it for a million dollars. I did that. I don't need a lot, but I need what I used to get, and they don't give you that anymore.
I write two pages - that's all I write. It takes me about an hour. I've learned that's all I'm capable of and to push myself beyond that is foolhardy. It's a very delicate thing, and I will not abuse it. So I write two pages, then I get up from the computer.
I don't believe in landing on one genre. That's too limiting. I don't think about that when I'm writing and recording. I just make what I feel should happen. Genres almost feel like something that's more for the listener; a need to organize it in categories.
As far as music, that's always going to be my first love and I've always loved doing music and I always will, but right now it's more into film, television and behind the scenes with writing and producing. I'm still going to keep releasing music for my fans.
What the young writer is looking for is not a critic who will slap him on the back and say, 'Greatest thing since O. Henry,' but rather the one who will toss the manuscript down in disgust, with 'You know better than that! It's rotten! Do it all over again!'
I began using pseudonyms early in my career, when I was being paid a quarter a cent a word for my work, and when I had to write a lot to earn a living. Sometimes I had three or four stories in a single magazine without the editor knowing they were all by me.
I try to remember the things that keep me peaceful, happy, and compassionate. I constantly write notes on my phone about little discoveries I make in terms of perspective and habitual thought patterns. My memory seems to let me down, so this really helps me.
When I write a word in English, a simple one, such as, say, 'chief,' I have unwittingly ushered a querulous horde into the room. The Roman legionary is there, shaking his 'cap,' or head, and Al Cap is there, slouching in his signature working man's headgear.
Rules such as "Write what you know," and "Show, don't tell," while doubtlessly grounded in good sense, can be ignored with impunity by any novelist nimble enough to get away with it. There is, in fact, only one rule in writing fiction: Whatever works, works.
I've always got a whole bunch of things in the works. That's sort of the nature of the business. Even when you're doing something you love doing, you have to be plotting and scheming and writing and preparing for what you're going to do when that's finished.
Talking of Pleasure, this moment I was writing with one hand, and with the other holding to my Mouth a Nectarine - how good how fine. It went down all pulpy, slushy, oozy, all its delicious embonpoint melted down my throat like a large, beatified Strawberry.
My novels tend to take a long time to become exactly what they're going to be. They're fluid messes until I've done a ton of editing and refining and rewriting. When I write novels, I always make related scrapbooks to help me organize and test my intentions.
The idea of going to school to be an art critic is a very crazy idea. I educated myself in public, which is a very painful way to learn - by writing and then discovering that I don't know what the f**k I'm talking about. But you remember the lessons vividly.
I've been acting for so long it's more like - I won't say easy, exactly, but there's not the same angst with writing that comes about with acting. Writing - particularly when you're writing yourself, when it's you, when it's your life, you really can't hide.
As much as you don't want to say you are a vengeful person, when someone drags your name through the mud and plays press games and puts things out there like that, you are kind of like, alright. US Weekly will be gone next week, the songs I am writing won't.
the more humdrum aspects of life do not make for gripping reading. To render them compelling, a writer must describe the universal in eloquent and evocative prose. Alas, Frey's writing suggests that this was not an option, and he came up with something else.
It happened in New York, April 10th, nineteen years ago. Even my hand balks at the date. I had to push to write it down, just to keep the pen moving on the paper. It used to be a perfectly ordinary day, but now it sticks up on the calendar like a rusty nail.
Self-discovery in songwriting, bringing something forth that's instructive to yourself - some of the best songs that you will ever write are the ones where you didn't have to think about any of that stuff, but nonetheless that's what's happening in the song.
The ways in which a standardized language test induces storytelling, for example, is the opposite of creative writing; you have to learn a logical way to start a story, whereas in creative writing you may begin at the end or begin at the middle of the story.
I basically have two ways I start writing. Either I'll start with something about myself, or something that happened to me that seemed important, or I'll start with some idea I have that doesn't have much to do with me. But one will always lead to the other.
From about the age of 15 or 16 I'd had the notion that I wanted to write fiction, and I'd done enough in college to satisfy myself that I had a knack for it - I wouldn't call it "talent" - though I wondered if I'd ever have the guts to actually commit to it.
I write to withdraw as a nominee to serve as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. ... I am concerned that the confirmation process presents a burden for the White House and our staff that is not in the best interest of the country.
Writing an informative yet compact thriller is a lot like making maple sugar candy. You have to tap hundreds of trees - boil vats and vats of raw sap - evaporate the water - and keep boiling until you've distilled a tiny nugget that encapsulates the essence.
The very term "turning pages" suggests nonstop action. But I am all about character and beautiful writing. I eat that up like popcorn. Whether a book is action-packed or not, all I need are well-written prose and quirky, fabulous characters to keep me going.
I usually work seven days a week and rarely take vacations, which is both lame and unsustainable. I don't mind the idea of writing seven days a week, I suppose. Getting some work done early in the morning. But ideally I would love to take one day a week off.
I feel like one can have all of that as a writer; you're writing, you're reading, you're talking to interesting and intelligent people. Your life is structured around whatever book you're writing, and so is your reading and so are many of your conversations.
I wrote my graduate thesis at New York University on hard-boiled fiction from the 1930s and 1940s, so, for about two years, I read nothing but Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James Cain and Chester Himes. I developed such a love for this kind of writing.
I think that's pretty crucial for it to succeed and be something more than just something you put your kid in front of and turn on the DVD. We wouldn't have got involved if it were just for little kids. We wanted to write something that works on both levels.
If in my lifetime the problem of non-free software is solved, I could perhaps relax and write software again. But I might instead try to help deal with the world's larger problems. Standing up to an evil system is exhilarating, and now I have a taste for it.
People going into a business have to have a plan. It's helpful to write it out, even if you're the only one there to see it and execute it. It's your bible. Stick to it, unless things happen in the market that cause you to change your plan. I do that myself.
When I started writing a business column 15 years ago, I knew I'd found the perfect job for myself. As a columnist I could pick my own topic, do my own analysis, say what I wanted to say and attribute it to myself. Best of all, I could write in my own voice.
When I started writing, I did have some idealised notion of my dad as a writer. But I have less and less of a literary rivalry with him as I've gone on. I certainly don't feel I need his approval, although maybe that's because I'm confident that I've got it.
That's the difference between a real journal and one that's invented for a novel. A novel journal has to be manipulated so someone reading it can have enough comprehension, which means the person writing it would've had to have a sense of a someday-audience.
I remember learning to drive on my dad's lap. Did you guys ever do that? He'd work the brakes. I'd work the wheel. Then I went to take the driver's test and sat on the examiner's lap. I failed the exam. But he still writes to me. That's the really nice part.
One of the things I'm real proud of is I just made a deal with 20th Century Fox, and I've got my own production company now. I'm developing some television and movies for other people because I have a lot of fresh new ideas. To write is what I love the most.
All I know is when I start getting serious about songwriting... it's like a playground. All responsibilities slip away and you're with your essence. There can be delight there and self-discovery. You can dance there... I think of it as my serious playground.
Sometimes girls write me. One girl in Yugoslavia sent me a whole slew of love letters. I don't know how she got my address. She was in a crowd watching me play. She says when I left there the stars fell out of the sky over Yugoslavia, or something like that.
I have no sense of a model or predecessor when I write a memoir: For me, the form exists as a method of processing material that retains too many connections to life to be approached strictly and aesthetically. A memoir is a risk, a one-off, a bastard child.
If you are writing a story and trying to draw an audience to come and hear you tell it, it's got to in some way relate to them. Who wants to come and hear about your specific problems? It's not therapy - it's supposed to be a communal piece of entertainment.
Hardly anybody ever writes anything nice about introverts. Extroverts rule. This is rather odd when you realise that about nineteen writers out of twenty are introverts. We are been taught to be ashamed of not being 'outgoing'. But a writer's job is ingoing.