When you leave, I feel like I'm alone with your demons.
Seven years into writing a novel, I started to lose my mind. My thirty-seventh birthday had just come and gone, the end of 2008 was approaching, and I was constantly aware of how little I had managed to accomplish.
I wasn't very good about juggling family and my career. I was interested in who was coming to the children's birthday party, what my son was writing. I was thinking about Legos.
I'm a 24-hour tweet machine, I'm a 24-hour blogger. When there's no pressure on me, I can talk and write and lecture with the best of them. But put a deadline on me and I start getting writer's block.
I was always writing scripts, and I had made several shorts, before and after film school. But I worked a variety of temp positions over the years.
In my 20s I was in constant pain from undiagnosed endometriosis. With no prospect of a cure, I decided I needed a career - writing - that could accommodate being ill.
I don't like to make strong statements. I want to write strong novels... I keep my deep, radical things for my novels.
Even when I am writing I usually take a break around lunchtime and go for a little walk to clear out my head.
Yes, I am aware that I have become a caricature. I've thought about this. Conceptually, what I'd like to do is the equivalent of writing myself out of the script.
It's just as well that I write in the same facile way wherever I am - no blocks or anguish, no contemplation, no elaborate revision, no need for love-tokens or nice views.
I always knew I was going to grow up to be a storyteller; that's one of the earliest things I remember about myself. There was never a question of me not writing.
I pretty much only write by default, because I want to make certain projects so instead of trying to wait and find them, I create them, but I'm not really a writer.
For me, songwriting is something I have to do ritually. I don't just wait for inspiration; I try to write a little bit every day.
I read what I write over and over and make corrections and improvements, until I reach the conclusion that the material deserves to stand on its own.
I've been so spoiled in the theater, writing plays where I can just do exactly what I want and nobody messes with me.
When I write, I do not like using ten dollar words. I like the fifty-centers. Everybody has fifty-cents, even those that are too proud to admit it.
If I make you read, then I'll keep quiet. If I make you think, then I'll keep reading. If I make you smile, then I'll keep writing.
Every musician writes about past relationships. And other than that, I can promise you, I have very little in common with Taylor Swift.
I think I subconsciously put myself in these situations where the girlfriend isn't pleased with me. I'm useless as a boyfriend. That's how I managed to write all these songs.
I have to write because if I don't get something down then after a while I feel it's going to bang the side of my head off.
I don't know what the inspiration for most of songs really mean until I finish them. For the most part, I'm going for a visceral impression, and I write the words last.
