Lyrics have to be underwritten. That's why poets generally make poor lyric writers because the language is too rich. You get drowned in it.
The financial value put on the job of the writer and the misconceptions around that make it extremely difficult to enter the profession.
A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world." [ , Frankfurt Book Fair, October 12, 2003]
The writing talent of Edinburgh is textured - we have poets, novelists, non-fiction writers, dramatists and more.
Writers of novels live in a strange world where what's made up is as important as what's real.
Very rarely do I talk off the top of my head on stage. I'm not an improv guy. I'm a writer-guy who presents what he's written.
I'm not really a plot writer - I'm more interested in the characters and sort of small events that propel the story forward.
Horror fans are very passionate people, and they are very much into the 'Saw' thing. So they watch sometimes as carefully as the writers and producers do, in terms of the way the story plays out.
I did a series called Ned and Stacey for two years for Fox back in the 90s. I was writer on it as well as a producer, and it was very important to me that there were no contemporary references.
Although I always said that I wanted to be a writer from childhood, I hadn't actually done much about it until I came to London.
I'm more of a writer than an actor, and I used to say that I'm mostly an improviser, though I haven't improvised in awhile.
People are always saying that I must have been the class clown, with all these voices. No, I was way too shy to be the class clown; I was a class clown's writer.
Writers tell stories better, because they've had more practice, but everyone has a book in them. Yes, that old cliche.
The other writer who had a very important early influence on me when I was about 17 was C.S. Lewis.
My point of view as a writer has to be a lot more ego-less than just like being some performer on stage with a hairdo.
I'm a writer, first and foremost, and I sort of take my cues from the songwriters of the '70s, who are talking about what's really important to them.
When I'm writing, I'm writing for a particular actor. When a lot of writers are writing, they're writing an idea. So they're not really writing in a specific voice.
With comedy especially, it feels like such a clear-cut thing to be a writer-director. There is so much nuance and tone in a comedy that it's hard to contextualise it in a script.
Is the biographer an artist who can and should exist on equal terms with the dramatist, fiction writer and poet? The short and robust answer is, 'Certainly not.'
I consider myself West African, among other cultural identities, and a writer, among other creative ones.
As a writer, one is obliged to release her words, to let them live in the world on their own.
