I love failure. It's stuff that I'm thinking about all the time in my life, so it would make sense to me anyway to write about it.
Every book I've written has been a different attempt to understand something, and the success or failure of the previous one is irrelevant. I write the book I want.
I taught high school English for 24 years. I always teach my students to appreciate the beauty of language and to write poetically.
I made straight A's and never got into any trouble, and I still impose those standards on myself. So writing is my chance to escape and become the sleaziest, scummiest role.
Oh yeah; I love when I'm writing something that makes me cry - that's so cool. If it got me to do that, it's going to get someone else to do that.
Depending on what I'm working on, I come to the writing desk with entirely different mindsets. When I change form one to the other, it's as if another writer is on the scene.
I don't write about things that I have the answers to or things that are very close to home. It just wouldn't be any adventure. It wouldn't have any vitality.
I used to sit home with my computer and write. After the Newbery, I probably spend more than half my time on the road.
The hardest thing is spending twelve hours a day accommodating the rest of the world, then going home at night and criticizing it. I would be curious about what I'd write if I didn't have to worry about offending.
I doubt I'll be singing forever, because at some point people aren't going to want to hear my music, and I hope that I'll still get the opportunity to write songs.
I aspire to write what are called 'familiar essays.' They begin in the personal and end in the universal. It's not for me to say if I have been successful at it. But that is the hope.
One problem was that my direct testimony was in writing, so a lot of people didn't get to see it. I hope they see it, because I think it built a very strong case.
My first instinct when I write songs is not a negative one. It's something positive... Everything I've ever done has some form of hope in it, I think.
What I mean by that is that the point of life, as I see it, is not to write books or scale mountains or sail oceans, but to achieve happiness, and preferably an unselfish happiness.
Everything was a song. Every conversation, every personal hurt, every observance of people in stress, happiness and love... if you could feel it, I could feel it. And I could write a song about it.
When I look at a lot of older stuff that I've written, I think one sign of amateur humor writing is when you see people trying too hard.
I never write anything without humor, just because I like humor, but at the same time, it is a way for anything fantastical to become relatable.
At the risk of appearing disingenuous, I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor.' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe, which is frequently hilarious.
When I began writing that I was able and did travel and met some fascinating people and also uncovered some history, which has not been discovered before.
For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.
I think for writers who write that kind of stuff, they want to make changes. Look at Kris Kristofferson and Dylan. I mean, whole generations come along liking that stuff and that's great.
