Writing Quotes
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You learn a lot, writing fiction.
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I started writing because I got so frustrated that there weren't enough plays that had roles for young black women in them.
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If I lose, then I have to accept that my way of writing books is not the way society says it's okay to write.
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Being a journalist, being exposed to the world, to social injustice, to intolerance, growing up here, under apartheid, benefitting from that, has all shaped who I am and what my passions are, and of course that's going to come through in my writing.
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When I was writing 'Withnail,' I was so busted flat that I had one lightbulb that I would carry around the house with me. I mean, really. No furniture, no money, and I was hoping to be an actor, but I could never get a job.
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I get caught up in my bubble of reading, writing, or music.
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When I first read 'At Freddie's', I was struggling with my own writing, particularly with how to write about a sad subject - the death of a parent - without writing an entirely sad book.
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The words get easier the moment you stop fearing them.
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Those emotions that are really strong, the ones that inspire a song, you can hold onto that. You can let it marinate for years and keep writing about it even better than you did then.
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The novelist in me is probably hiding behind all the stories I write, looking for ways to connect them and continue the conversation with readers. Maybe I'm writing one long narrative, and each book, however different from the last, is just a chapter.
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Songwriters write songs, but they really belong to the listener.
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Writing is hard. That's why so few people stick to it and actually finish things. And why you have a right to be immensely proud when you finish something.
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Writing is the hardest thing I know, but it was the only thing I wanted to do. I wrote for 20 years and published nothing before my first book.
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And it's kind of my own fault too, in the sense that I've used my own life as a literary device so much. I think people feel very comfortable reviewing the idea of me, as opposed to what I've actually written. I find that most of the time, when people write about one of my books, they're really just writing about what they think I may or may not represent, as sort of this abstract entity. Is that unfair? Not really. If I put myself in this position where I'm going to kind of weave elements of memoir into almost everything, well, I suppose that's going to happen.
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My music is constantly changing because I am. I'm writing it and changing as I'm writing.
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'Despacito' started with a melody hook that I had with my guitar only. The beat for this track came after I wrote the lyrics, which I wrote as if I was writing a ballad.
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As an arts journalist in London, working mainly for the BBC, I interviewed hundreds if not thousands of authors. From them I gleaned a great deal of passing instruction in writing and I observed one fascinating detail: no two writers approach their work - physically - in the same way.
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I'm one of those writers who, when writing, believes she's god-and that she hasn't bestowed free will on any of her characters. In that sense there are no surprises in any of my books.
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You meditate and then you can put on your pajamas, or you can imagine you're wearing your pajamas, and you talk about your piece of writing in the language you would use if you were wearing your pajamas and you were seated at a table with your very good friend. And you wouldn't have to get all dressed up or clean up the table.
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Whether you're writing a book or a song or whatever, you've got to be involved in it. It's got to come from the heart I think...that's what it's all about.
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I eat broccoli. I think about the plot. I pace in circles for hours, counter-clockwise, listening to music. I try to think of one detail in the scene I'm about to write that I'm really excited about writing. Until I can come up with that one detail, I pace.
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If you look at a map, you see that Hawaii is in the middle of nowhere. It's 17 hours of straight flying from London. It's very far away, and sometimes you feel as if you're on another planet. But I like that. Also, that's ideal for writing.
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Life piles up so fast that I have no time to write out the equally fast rising mound of reflections.
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Writing requires an intense inner focus, and sometimes you need to express outward, physically or socially.
