I just can't think how I would go on without children having lost Edith already... It's too upsetting for me to write about them. Naturally, I still hope, and wait, wait, wait.
I devour history books. I love anything by Thomas B. Costain or George MacDonald Fraser. He writes magnificent history, and he also wrote the Flashman stories, which are irresistible.
I've been reading about Crazy Horse and Custer for a long, long time, and I thought that if I was going to write a story that took place in the Black Hills, I should find a way to include this history in it.
I live in America. I have the right to write whatever I want. And it's equaled by another right just as powerful: the right not to read it. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to offend people.
Some of the young kids look for one hit to be a star; that what they're known for the rest of their life... I never wanted to be known as one thing; that is the reason I do classical theater, write, direct and the blessings God has given me... I want...
When I sit down to write a novel, I am exploring my own relationship with God, with the struggle between good and evil, my own purpose.
I have great ideas, but the follow through is always really difficult for me. As my kid gets a little bit older, if I feel like I have a little bit more time on my hands, I'd like to get more into developing ideas and writing things.
As an arts journalist in London, working mainly for the BBC, I interviewed hundreds if not thousands of authors. From them I gleaned a great deal of passing instruction in writing and I observed one fascinating detail: no two writers approach their w...
There's a personal story of my own that I will write at some point, and it's a film that I will happily make. It could very well be the next thing I do, unless someone shows me something great.
I'm a great planner, so before I ever write chapter 1, I work out what happens in every chapter and who the characters are. I usually spend a year on the outline.
'The Practice' I was on for seven years and it was a law show, so I really - a lot of objections and things like that, lots of long, long monologues that David Kelly used to write me, which were great. I was really lucky to have my first show go that...
I don't think of my books as being biographies. I never had any interest in doing a book just to write the life of a great man. I had zero interest in that. My interest is in power. How power works.
I was writing very early, like I was involved in our high school literary magazine, which was called 'Pariah.' The football team was the Bears, and the literary magazine was 'Pariah.' It was great. It was definitely a real sub-culture. But I wrote st...
What I always wanted to get seen as was as a good actor, when it was the acting I was doing. When I'm writing, I want to try to be seen as a good writer. Not as somebody with a particular idea to sell, or something like that.
I write on a very strict 2-hour-a-day schedule, and I really respond to structure and invented rules. So even if I'm finding out good information on a character, I will stop when I'm set to stop.
Maybe I could have been good as a drawer if I had done it as much as I did writing, but it's more scary to draw. It's more revealing. You can't disguise yourself in drawing.
Now I'm fortunate to have a good band in CA, and play many solo gigs as well. My point is that I stopped playing in bands and played solo for four years, to get back into the groove and pulse of writing and singing and who I am on stage.
Bob Marley is a huge influence. I love reggae music, but I also love the purpose of the songs he writes and the style of the music - it takes your worries away and makes you feel good, and I think that's what music is about.
I do think novels are overlooked. I did write one some years ago that I think is quite good, called 'The End of the Story,' not to blow my own horn.
At the beginning of this album I discovered the computer and had great fun playing with the thing. And I realized that, not being a good keyboard player, I could write things in very small sections, give them a certain feel and mess about with bends ...
I am a novelist. I traffic in subtleties, and my goal in writing a novel is to leave the reader not knowing what to think. A good novel shouldn't have a point.
