I always played around with writing songs, but when you're spending a lot of time in bars, you have a lot of big ideas, but you don't do much with them.
The decision to write full time was made when I was twenty-eight years old and had just had two small plays accepted for BBC Radio.
Producing words isn't a problem for me. And I usually write two books at a time. When one horse gets winded, you jump on the other.
I write all the time because I'm lonely. When you're acting, you're working every day all day. But then you have long amounts of time off.
Working as a musician, I have to constantly generate new material, so school keeps me sharp. Reading and writing all the time helps me to be a better songwriter.
My wife and I always comment that our lives are relatively mundane. She's a writer as well, I'm a writer, we spend most of our time writing, and kind of going to yoga in Brooklyn.
Only occasionally do I read new fiction. Most of my reading is heavily dictated by what I'm writing at the time.
If we were truly in the studio making a record, it would have been more time consuming, and certainly I would have been more involved in the writing process.
I focus on the writing and let the rest of the process take care of itself. I've learned to trust my own instincts and I've also learned to take risks.
I ain't no author, man... my writing skills are not of 'New York Times' best-seller quality, trust and believe it ain't. My vocabulary ain't.
I went to Morocco, joined a band called Pegasus, ran out of money, went to Gibraltar and worked on the docks, writing songs about the sun and the morning and the birds.
I would recommend, definitely, developing a 'day job' that you like - don't expect to make money writing!
I want to prove that if you write in strict meter and rhyme about subjects people care about, they will buy poetry.
Humour is a fine line to walk in poetry, as in fiction. I just think it's harder to write. It's harder to keep the respect of the reader too.
I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others; it's for others to use.
The nerds are my favourite sort of boys - any guy with a passion - whether it be physics or film or writing or poetry even, I think it's super sweet and it's very attractive for a female.
I write against the religion because if women want to live like human beings, they will have to live outside the religion and Islamic law.
One of the things I find in writing about people who are dead is that, after a short or long time, no matter how close the relationship was, they become like characters in fiction.
Writing can sometimes be exploitative. I like to take a few steps of remove in order to respect the privacy of the subject. If readers make the link, they have engaged with the poem.
I sometimes think it ironic for an ex-seaman, longshoreman, truck driver, policeman, bus driver, etc... to find success writing children's novels.
I don't think you can write - at least not well - if you don't love stories, love the written word.
