I never think in terms of target audience. I try to write what makes me laugh, so I'm the target audience. I guess I just hope there's another person in America like me.
I find so much writing colourless, small in its means, unwilling to take stylistic risks. Often it goes wrong; I am not the one to judge. Sometimes, I hope, it goes right.
Before I gave birth to Hope, I had a miscarriage. The pain was so enormous, I had to write myself out of it. I kept a diary and did not feel entirely complete until Hope was born.
I lost my brother in a car wreck when I was 14 years old. When I decided I wanted to be a country singer, my dad always told me, 'Son, you should write a song about your brother.'
I love movies. And I dig a great love story: the kind that wrecks me, then builds me back up and leaves me inspired. I write what I want to see.
My mother and I will continue on some level that I haven't determined yet. I think my mother's a great character, and I have to say that giving my mother to the world has to be the biggest thrill of my writing career.
I'm a pretty decent writer. It comes easy to me. I don't agonize over sentences. I write like I talk. I try to make them good books.
I know that there's a cultural expectation that women be nurturing, delicate flowers. And I am. So delicate. But that doesn't mean I can't write a good, gory murder scene.
As a means to an end, modelling was good, but I had to distance myself from it when I started working as an actress, because even though I wasn't high-profile, I found in my first write-ups that I'd be referred to as 'model Gemma Chan.'
Writing comes from that territory of being invalidated. But I had a sense of purpose, too. I wanted to stop apologising for my health, and I thought I might do some good.
Although I don't come from a musical background, I was given piano lessons along with my sisters, but I wasn't what you would call a good student. I tended to write songs rather than do scales.
I'm looking for backing for an unauthorized auto-biography that I am writing. Hopefully, this will sell in such huge numbers that I will be able to sue myself for an extraordinary amount of money and finance the film version in which I will play ever...
I wouldn't totally rule out doing Letterman or the Tonight Show if I had a set that I just happened to write that I thought was funny but was still appropriate for network censors. But I'm not going to go out of my way.
If my writing comes to a halt, I head to the shops: I find them very inspirational. And if I get into real trouble with my plot, I go out for a pizza with my husband.
I can write with authority only about what I know well, which means that I end up using surface details of my own life in my fiction.
I like to write songs about what's happening, what I see around me and what I hear. Everyday life. Someone may be talking to me and I may take it from that.
My grand plan is that I can master having a better life by making sure I have a regular flow of songs. Then I can give myself time to tour or celebrate or write a film score.
People come up to me and say, 'Can I just thank you for writing my life?' And I reply, 'I'm glad someone else is as idiotic as I am.'
The two things I was positive about in life were that I was going to be a teacher at a boarding school or an operative with the CIA posted abroad. I could write a book about all the things I was sure about.
Whenever I realize I'm being a goofball, I write it down. When I release the joke onstage, I love watching the effect it has on the audience. No one wants to see someone talk who takes themselves too seriously.
I grew up reading comic books, pulp books, mystery and science fiction and fantasy. I'm a geek; I make no pretensions otherwise. It's the stuff that I love writing about. I like creating worlds.
