Writing Quotes
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I always saw songwriting as the top of the heap. No matter what else you were going to do creatively - and there were a lot of choices - writing songs was king.
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Dogs and other animals - goats, donkeys, cows, a grumpy rooster - continue to change my writing life.
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I never, ever talk about writing to anyone at all.
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Figures are the most shocking things in the world. The prettiest little squiggles of black looked at in the right light and yet consider the blow they can give you upon the heart.
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I love long sentences. My big heroes of fiction writing are Henry James and Proust - people who recognise that life doesn't consist of declarative statements, but rather modifications, qualifications and feelings.
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It's much easier to teach writing, because people are less shy about writing. If they're in a group, nobody can see what they're writing. When you're drawing, people get a little more nervous.
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When I'm writing, I think about the garden, and when I'm in the garden I think about writing. I do a lot of writing by putting something in the ground.
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Being the everyman in the writing room helps a lot: you have to be a real collaborator and selfless, and not have ego when you walk in there. That's the antithesis of the artist mentality.
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I had to write a comedy set and film a show at the same time. And it's the second time I've been up on stage as a stand-up comedian with untested material. I was saying it out loud for the first time that night. It didn't go how I expected, but in the best possible way.
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I started writing more with my voice in mind.
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I went to grad school with the grand plan of getting my Ph.D. and writing weighty, Tudor-Stuart-set historical fiction - from which I emerged with a law degree and a series of light-hearted historical romances about flower-named spies during the Napoleonic wars.
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I would fix other people's lines if they asked me on occasion. The hard part of writing is the architecture of it, getting the story and structuring it. Not the tweaking of lines.
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It's much like writing a screenplay with someone else and that's how we view it, I think.
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The person who's writing and performing those songs wants to get to know the fans even more. Find out how close that song is to their real life, what it means to them. The earlier in the process that we can start connecting those artists with fans, the better.
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If I found out some gal was trying to steal my guy, I'd want to give her a black eye! Instead, I wrote this song. At the time I was writing each song [on this album], you could figure out the frame of mind I was in by listening closely. With every song I've ever recorded, I'm in it. I wouldn't write about it if I wasn't in it.
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I've been painting and drawing and taking pictures as long as I've been writing music - and I've actually been drawing longer than I've been writing music.
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All writers start out mimicking other writers. I've never relinquished that. I have a good ear for speech and writing patterns.
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I can write the stuff and play it myself and have something in my head, but the best feeling is when somebody else plays it and they're hearing something other than what I'm hearing.
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Writing is total grunt work. A lot of people think it's all about sitting and waiting for the muse. I don't buy that. It's a job. There are days when I really want to write, days when I don't. Every day I sit down and write.
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I've been writing jokes since I'm fifteen. Not out of happiness, but to go to a different place, because reality wasn't good to me.
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There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.
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I think people become consumed with selling a book when they need to be consumed with writing it.
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I never base a character on someone I know. You can get ideas from real life, but every character you write is some aspect of yourself.
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I love doing normal things - movies, shopping, going out with friends, writing, reading, taking hot bubble baths - that's a big one for relaxation. I also love to go to art and history museums.
