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 lead a normal life and I don't assume there is anything I can impart to people. The only reason to write a book would be to make money, and I don't want to do that. To write a book would be going against how I've lived.
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 spent many years of my life as an economist and demographer. I was finally distracted by writing my novels and poetry. I'm enormously happy that was the case. I feel that with writing I have found my metier.
I spent many years trying to write a lot like Ben Folds or John Lennon or Rivers Cuomo. I think that's healthy when you're learning to write and seeing how chords fit together and how songs take shape.
As an actor, there is room for a certain amount of creativity, but you're always ultimately going to be saying somebody else's words. I don't think I'd have the stamina, skill or ability to write a novel, but I'd love to write short stories and poetr...
I love telling stories. I love the intimacy between the writer and reader. When you write sketches it's over in two minutes. When you write a book the characters have to have a bit of emotional depth.
Every actor I ever meet goes, 'Ultimately I plan on having my own company and write and direct,' but yes, I too would love to write and direct a movie. I want to do a play, too. I want to do it all.
My personality has two sides: a very social side and a reclusive side. I love writing fiction, although I can't imagine ever being locked up in a room writing all the time.
I write at the piano, so I write things that fit comfortably under my hands, and I'm not thinking in terms of any specific compositional methods. I'm just seeking sounds.
If there was anything that I learned with my own writing process, maybe there's too many choices what to write about. Just the amount of subject matter in the world these days; maybe that feels chaotic for me.
My whole theory of writing I can sum up in one sentence. An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.
All the time I'm not writing I feel like a criminal. It's horrible to feel felonious every second of the day. It's much more relaxing to actually write.
I formed a resolution to never write a word I did not want to write; to think only of my own tastes and ideals, without a thought of those of editors or publishers.
As far as what readers can expect with 'Maybe Someday,' I'm not the type of writer who writes to educate or inform my readers. I simply write to entertain them.
In 1982, when I was almost 26 years old, I decided I wanted to write fiction. I'd majored in journalism in college, and I'd always assumed I would write nonfiction.
To make it interesting and worth doing, writing a novel has to be a leap into the unknown. I have to be unsure if I can write it; otherwise, I won't want to.
In the fall of 1989, I was writing 600-word columns at the 'Herald.' My heart always was in long-form narrative writing, though. It's what I cut my teeth on at the 'Boston Phoenix.'
We always feel pretty creative as far as writing songs. We write them together; we just get in a room, or on occasion in Flea's garage. We just sort of improvise, like jazz musicians.
My job is to write opinions. I decide cases and write opinions. It is not to respond to idiocy and critics who make statements that are unfounded. That doesn't mean that people shouldn't have constructive criticisms, but it should be constructive.
I'd read books in Russian, and they would take me forever. I wanted to write a book that would last and would not be superficial. Siberian-travel writing is its own genre.
