[Baloo's monkey disguise in the ancient ruins has failed, exposing him] Monkey: It's Baloo the bear! Second Monkey: Yeah, that's him! How'd that square get in there?
That's the thing about a book: You're in the public life for a little bit, and then you sort of go away for a little while - several years, in my case - and then you come out again, hopefully.
Lots of people can write a good first page but to sustain it, that's my litmus test. If I flip to the middle of the book and there's a piece of dialogue that's just outstanding, or a description, then I'll flip back to the first page and start it.
If there is a book that the script came from you have to read it, you have to see what you can get out of it: mood, back story and things that may not even be in the film. They kick off your imagination and broaden the character, I think.
I think because I try to keep things as real as I can, or I try to start from a place of reality, I almost don't have the imagination to write a book that's not set where I am.
I get really excited if I think I'm going to introduce somebody to a writer they haven't found before and I think they'll love. My favorite books to get as gifts are any that the giver is messianic about.
I wouldn't say that 'The Fabric of the Cosmos' is a book on cosmology. Cosmology certainly plays a big part, but the major theme is our ever-evolving understanding of space and time, and what it all means for our sense of reality.
The next time you download a book on Kindle, buy a Michael Moore screed at Barnes & Noble, or order up a political movie from video on demand, remember that it is the Supreme Court's decision in 'Citizens United' that guarantees you the right to do s...
I'm constantly trying to keep people guessing as to what I'm doing, and I will spend enormous amounts of time looking at manuscripts and asking questions, and people will say, 'I know what his next book is about.'
I don't plot the books out ahead of time, I don't plan them. I don't begin at the beginning and end at the end. I don't work with an outline and I don't work in a straight line.
You know, now it's sinking in. It's taken me a long time to realize - and it is sinking in - how important this book is. And I have a certain distance now. I've done it such a long time ago.
Oh, I just want what we all want: a comfortable couch, a nice beverage, a weekend of no distractions and a book that will stop time, lift me out of my quotidian existence and alter my thinking forever.
I'm sure you're aware, with the time it takes to put these books together, everything can suddenly start coming out at once even though I wrote anything between one and five years ago.
The first time I read an excellent work, it is to me just as if I gained a new friend; and when I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting of an old one.
I think that, in all of my time, I got just one fan letter, from an NFL fullback named Darian Barnes. NFL players might not have enough time for my books.
I spend a lot of time preparing. I think a lot about what I want to do. I have prep books, little notebooks in which I write everything down before a sitting. Otherwise I would forget my ideas.
Every kind of book I've written has been written in a different way. There has not been any set time for writing, any set way, I haven't re-invented the process every time but I almost have.
When it comes time to write the book itself I'll shut the lights out, picture the scene I'm about to write then close my eyes and go at it. Yes, I can touch type.
I read a zombie story, and I have nightmares for days. But my youngest sister loves zombie stories. So when she insisted it was time for Bards and Sages to put together a zombie book, I couldn't tell her 'no.'
My first book took five years to write and I made $1,000 on it. The second took three years and I made $3,000. All this time I was a housewife being supported by a husband. I was very lucky.
Don't patronize the chain bookstores. Every time I see some author scheduled to read and sign his books at a chain bookstore, I feel like telling him he's stabbing the independent bookstores in the back.
