Writing Quotes
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As a songwriter, I was really into pulling away from the melodrama and the overdramatic type of writing that I was previously always doing. I think over time my songs have become more and more restrained.
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I started writing songs at 17.
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I don't suppose a writing man ever really gets rid of his old crocus-yellow neckties. Sooner or later, I think, they show up in his prose, and there isn't a hell of a lot he can do about it.
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I began like all composers, writing for small groups. Chamber groups.
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I had never thought about writing a novel. But I had two young kids, and I realized that if I could write a novel, I could work at home.
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I dabbled in writing, wrote really bad poetry in high school. I also took a few writing classes when I was an undergrad at Stanford. I was so intimidated.
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Sometimes it's really quick, and sometimes it's really long. There's no formula for writing songs.
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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.
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Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it-whole-heartedly-and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings. sic
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I changed my writing style deliberately. My first two novels were written in a very self-consciously literary way. After I embraced gay subject matter, which was then new, I didn't want to stand in its way. I wanted to make the style as transparent as possible so I could get on with it and tell the story, which was inherently interesting.
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I didn't start writing my own books until I was 40.
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I just write what comes to me. I didn't sit down and say ok, here is my statement. It's just a song that has a shout out.
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If I had to pick an artist that I look up to and am inspired by, it's Matisse because of how many times he would paint the same idea until he felt like he maybe got it right, and I try to do the same thing with my writing.
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I work daily, but not always on comics. I'm doing quite a bit of writing now, and I teach as well.
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I was kind of an outcast in school 'cause I always kept to myself and was writing poetry and then going on tour with my brother band all the time, so kids didn't know what to make of me.
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A script arrived, and on the front cover - scrawled really big, as if it were a book report - is 'Django Unchained, written by Quentin Tarantino.' And I thought, 'Well, no art department came up with this; this is Quentin's writing.'
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I think all of the decisions I make about my life and writing are the preparation - what I choose to write about and the immersive nature of the lifestyle I choose for playwriting.
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When I write, I use an Underwood #5 made in 1920. Someone gave me an electric typewriter, but there's no use pretending you can use machinery that thinks faster than you do. An electric typewriter is ready to go before I have anything to say.
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I don't use my writing career as a vehicle to get me acting work or to write roles for myself.
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I suppose one of the challenges of writing the word-side of music these days is trying to decipher and communicate how this planet is very overwhelming at this point. The difficulties we face are overwhelming. It's very difficult to give yourself the time to breathe and appreciate the joy and beauty that might be just right around us.
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You don't meet that many people that you can talk about Roots Manuva with, but that was my favorite in school, this record of his called 'Run Come Save Me.' When I first started writing lyrics, it came from that.
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I wrote about a bird that cleaned a crocodile's teeth. The story was so good that my teacher could not believe that a ten-year-old could write that well. I was even punished because my teacher thought I'd lied about writing it! I had always loved to write, but it was then that I realized that I had a talent for it.
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I think at first I didn't tell anyone I was writing something because I found so tedious the people who did.
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I do still read comics since I started writing for DC, but nowhere near as much as I used to, and I'm finding now that it's becoming harder to read comics as a consumer, so I think I'll have to make the call there and stop reading them.
