I had neither expert aid nor advice. I studied no courses in writing; until a year or so ago, I never read a book by anybody advising writers how to write.
When you're writing personal stories, you have to be totally uncompromising - to the extent that you can be - about yourself. I know that if I am uber-uncompromising with myself, that gives me some latitude to write about others.
I had developed this habit of writing scenarios as a hobby. I would find out which stories had been sold to be made into films and I would write my own treatment and then compare it.
I've been writing since I was about thirteen but didn't start a book until 2007. I spent four years writing a sci-fi novel before I wrote 'The Bone Season' at nineteen.
I have always loved horror very much. I used to write stories for DC's House of Mystery. It was one of my first jobs writing for comics, and I loved it.
I'm usually too shy to write on planes because I assume that everyone on board is as nosy as I am and will look over my shoulder and read what I'm writing.
See, I have no journalism in my background, so I wasn't practised at research or writing non-fiction, nor at handling the truth in a journalistic way. Journalists know when to call a halt and write something, but I kept on looking for answers.
When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more...
At the time I was writing the second album, I was sitting home in my underwear all day every day; I didn't have all that much to write about except for my own life and my family.
When it was suggested that I write a memoir I said, 'I'm not old enough. I'm not distinguished enough.' But I went home and sat down to write, and the material for the book just came flooding into my hands.
Writers don't make good spouses. When I am writing, I'm not a good wife. I shut myself away, and all my emotions are directed towards what I'm trying to write.
Now I am a writer who can command fairly good payments from magazines with large circulations, I very often refuse to write for them and still write sometimes for small magazines for nothing.
When I start writing these novels, I go into them with a spirit of inquiry rather than to substantiate prejudices I had in the beginning. If you don't do that, you can't write good characters.
I think you have to learn for yourself how to write. I'm slightly mystified by creative writing courses - God love them - because I can't understand how you can explain a process that I find so baffling.
Poetry was one of the things that interested me most as I was growing up. I used to write it in my head all the time. I still think the very greatest pleasure in life is to write a poem.
I don't really see how any song can not feel contrived if it isn't honest, and how could I write honest songs if I don't write about stuff going on in my life and how I'm feeling?
I take my inspiration for the song writing from little experiences, not even if I've experienced them myself but say if something has made me sad, I will use that emotion. I just use everyday life and write about it.
I have one main reader, Miriam Gomez, my wife. She reads everything I write - I have not finished writing something and she is already reading it.
When I write, I write for myself, and I have high expectations... so I'm just trying to meet those. I'm not going to distract myself with other people's expectations.
I think technique can be taught but I think the only way to learn to write is to read, and I see writing and reading as completely related. One almost couldn't exist without the other.
Everything starts with writing. I heard Nikki Giovanni and was blown away. I just thought 'wow'; she was writing from a black girl's perspective, and the imagery was so vivid that I started doing spoken word.
