I'm totally convinced I can write the perfect pop song.
On the one occasion where I did try writing a screenplay, I found the rewriting just unendurable.
I just write the sort of book that I would enjoy reading myself, a book that is both scholarly and recreates the experience of people at that time.
Well, my background is journalism. I don't have any creative-writing experience except for one class I took as a sophomore in college.
In every song I write, whether it's a love song or a political song or a song about family, the one thing that I find is feeling lost and trying to find your way.
I take two hours off for my family every day. And then I write fourteen hours.
My twin sister, my cousin, and I used to write and perform plays for my family. We raided the closets for costumes and fought over parts. I'm sure I was the bossiest one.
On the other hand, I mean, that is what writers have always been supposed to do, was to rely on their own devices and to - I mean, writing is a lonely business.
I had a long period of writing what I think of as 'save the world' novels. 'Fledgling' was a chance to play.
The book grew out of the introduction I did for Brady's Gates of Janus. I knew that the writing in that introduction had a better than average chance of being read by people involved in Brady's life - parents of victims, police, Brady himself.
I've always been a writer. I hope to continue to write books until I can't anymore.
I realised that if I wished to write about the dark and not allow for hope, people would recognise it as false - because hope is the nub of what we are.
Some things that I write, you'll see a page with cartoon pictures or a drawing of a car - like a Ford - or a flag. I still do it on an occasion when a word is strange to me.
I don't have kids, a mortgage, or a car. That has let me hold out for the jobs I want to do, and to sit in a cold room in the winter with fingerless gloves, writing.
There are certain topics songwriters stay away from because it's hard to go there. I didn't sit down and go, 'I want to write something about my dad now.'
I always thought we had an environmental problem, but I hadn't realized how urgent it was. James Lovelock writes that by the end of this century there will be one billion people left.
I'd always been a big reader, and I loved books, and I always thought writing would be a great way to get by in the world.
The thing I respond to the most is just great writing, interesting characters. I like to think that there is something fun about playing a character that has a lot of authority in her own life.
I have great difficulty sitting in the middle of the night and writing. Everything I do comes spontaneous. Sometimes it takes a long time; sometimes it comes just like that.
I write music just for me. I'm certainly not good enough to do it on any kind of a level but I enjoy that time because it's quiet.
There are some good songs, but not the kind of song-writing that I remember, that I like. Springsteen still does it. Paul Simon, and there are also good writers, but that doesn't dominate the charts.
