Writing Quotes
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It was hard for my father to read; it took him a long time, but he had tremendous retention and tremendous appreciation for writing.
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I kind of always struggled writing in Malay, because Malay is such a beautiful language. And it gets really hard, you know, if you want to make it into a song. You have to make it sound beautiful, use the right words.
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I actually never liked writing on my own or in school until I'd had my blog for a while and realized I'd been writing every day for years.
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I've been living. I've been doing the writing thing. I've been being the family man. I've been traveling the world. I been to, like, 18 cities last year. I've been getting my thoughts together, trying to figure out what's going on with hip-hop itself.
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I really enjoy English and poetry and writing classes.
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I devoted myself to writing for years without representation or a promise of anything. And there were times when I felt quite down about my prospects.
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I am a great procrastinator. When the writing is going really well, the laundry piles up.
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I started out wanting to be an actor and I like to give actors as much as possible. I love writing stuff where they can really lose control.
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The cool thing about writing is that there is really never a typical day. Sometimes I get a rhythm going and head off to work every morning and come home at night. Sometimes I'll write for two days straight and then be utterly blank for the next two.
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People had this image of the Jacksons as the perfect American family and I destroyed that image. But what people have to understand is writing that book was very healing for me.
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Having deadlines helps because people are constantly breathing down my neck, and tapping their toes waiting for pages. So I just have to work nine to five. If I didn't have deadlines then I might be more of a golden hour kind of guy, writing from eight to noon and calling it a day, but that's just not the way I work right now.
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When I'm not writing, I read loads of fiction, but I've been writing quite constantly lately so I've been reading a lot of nonfiction - philosophy, religion, science, history, social or cultural studies.
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I was a bartender for a long time, so I know how to make drinks, but I'm more likely to offer them than to have them. I think this is one of the reasons why I get to live longer than my great-grandmother did, and why I get to produce more writing than she did, and why my marriage isn't in dire straits.
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You should be watching 'White Collar' because it's a fun, intelligent procedural infused with a lot of great character writing by Jeff Eastin.
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I always appreciate people's opinions, but sometimes I have to take a step back and remember why I'm writing and what I want to do with it. Shutting out the voices is difficult but it's been good for me.
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In a way, 'Billy Elliot' was autobiographical. I can't dance, but I think his dancing was me discovering about writing and literature.
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Whatever extra there is in me at any given moment isn't fully formed. I am hardly aware of it; it awaits the next book. It will - with luck - come to me during the actual writing, and it will take me by surprise.
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I spent a lot of time doing really unimportant work as an actor. It was important when I started writing that I obviously make it entertaining, or no one is going to go see it - but to really make you think, that is my goal.
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I try not to picture a reader when I'm writing. It's like trying to make a great table but not picturing anybody sitting at it.
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One of the great lessons I learned about historical fiction from writing 'Loving Frank' is that you don't try to disguise what people did; my approach was to try to understand the characters and why they did what they did.
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The hardest thing about writing, for me, is facing the blank page.
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Over the years, you grow up, you mature and you see things in a different way, and it's reflected in the writing.
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It's not a problem to be surrounded by other writers if that's the craft that you're doing. I suppose if you get obsessed with the notion of being a writer more than the writing itself, that would be bad. But I live near really smart, thoughtful people who take writing very seriously, and I can meet them for breakfast and talk books.
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I have always loved magic realism as a form of writing. I have also been fascinated for a long time with the intersection of science and religion.
