I would not say I chose to write long poems on a conscious level. The long poem has been a relative constant.
College isn't in everyone's hearts. I am living proof, though, that school doesn't mess up your plans. It gives you more experiences to write about.
I was a prodigy who learned how difficult writing was only after getting published. I paid my dues later.
I'm comfortable having a specific audience to write to. I like the idea that my audience doesn't see what I do as controversial.
I think my mistakes were kind of common - leaning on cliches and adjectives in the place of clear, vivid writing. But at least I knew how to spell, which seems to be a rarity these days.
My background was producing and writing and performing in television when I started out, and I really missed that, that whole creative process that comes from sort of 'me' storytelling.
I ended up on 'Heroes' because I auditioned for the part like everybody else, but the writers were writing the role of Daphne, which was originally called Joy.
I learned to embrace my individuality, and if that meant writing a song on one chord over and over again, then that's what I do.
I still write the occasional short story, and poked at a novel once, but it's just not what I want to do.
If I fail, the film industry writes me off as another statistic. If I succeed, they pay me a million bucks to fly out to Hollywood and fart.
When I am writing, I'm very much on the ground, on the same ground my characters are treading.
If I didn't write, I'd be like a duvet cover; I have no other marketable skills. Clearly I'm not meant to do anything else.
As soon as I started writing, other writers stopped wanting me acting in their shows - maybe they thought I was going to rewrite them.
I envy those writers who outline their novels, who know where they're going. But I find writing is a process of discovery.
I need some kind of emotional stake in it to write my lyrics, assuming that place. It might just be an emotion I understand but am not currently experiencing necessarily.
Critics sometimes appear to be addressing themselves to works other than those I remember writing.
I will continue to write what I love to read, and the fact that it doesn't sell as well as romance or sci-fi or fantasy isn't the point.
To this day, 'The Duke and I' remains particularly close to my heart; I felt it was the novel in which my writing took a huge leap forward.
Obviously, I like to write stories that are page-turners. But I always try my very, very hardest to be as factually true as possible.
When I write, I aim in my mind not toward New York but toward a vague spot a little to the east of Kansas.
I got done writing Ports of Call and suddenly realized I have far too much material for the book.
