J.M. Barrie: Write about your family, Write about the talking Whale. Peter Llewelyn Davies: What Whale? J.M. Barrie: The one that is trapped in your imagination, desperate to get out.
When you write, it's just a much more crystalline, compressed version of the voice you think with - though not the one you speak with. I think your writing voice is your laser-guided missile. It's the poetry part of you.
But I can only write what the muse allows me to write. I cannot choose, I can only do what I am given, and I feel pleased when I feel close to concrete poetry - still.
Being able to say something lyrically, to say something that will do more than just be words, is really hard. It's easy to do when you're writing a chapter of a book or writing poetry, but it's really hard to do when you're confined to a melody line.
As a kid I wanted to write science fiction, and I was never without a book. Later I really got into being a scientist and never thought I'd be writing novels.
Fantasy is totally wide open; all you really have to do is follow the rules you've set. But if you're writing about science, you have to first learn what you're writing about.
Getting a book published made me feel a little bit sad. I felt driven by the need to write a book, rather than the need to write. I needed to figure out what was important to me as a writer.
I was really surprised at the success of 'House of Sand and Fog,' because it is so awfully dark. Believe it or not, when writing it, I never had the word 'tragedy' in my head - I wasn't trying to write a dark book at all.
People say, 'You're like Dickens', but I'm not like Dickens. Zadie Smith is a Dickensian writer because she's writing about society now, just as Dickens was writing about his society.
My teacher Tom Spanbauer, the man who got me started writing in his workshop, used to say: 'Writers write because they weren't invited to a party.' That always struck so true, and people always nod their heads when they hear that. Especially writers.
Write because you love it and not because it is something that you think you should do. Always write about something or somebody you know about - something that you feel deeply and passionately about. Never try and force it.
Love is the answer to everything. It's the only reason to do anything. If you don't write stories you love, you'll never make it. If you don't write stories that other people love, you'll never make it.
I love writing journalism because it's all over in two hours and comes straight off the top of the head. Writing novels is soooooo much harder. It's the hardest thing I've ever done.
I honestly think I could sit down and write a show tonight that the critics would love, and I know it would be canceled within four weeks. I know what the critics love. We write and produce for people, not for critics.
It was writing about music for NPR - connecting with music fans and experiencing a sense of community - that made me want to write songs again. I began to feel I was in my head too much about music, too analytical.
I'm involved with a baroque opera company here in Italy. I write some of their booklet material, comments on operas. I also write for some baroque opera festivals because this music is my real passion.
Since I met Starsmith, my producer, I really feel like I'm making music because we write it together and produce it together. I've got a proper involvement in the end product as opposed to just writing a song and finding someone else to produce it.
When I first started writing, I used to listen to music all the time because it would make time pass more quickly. And then I started to wonder if the music wasn't affecting my writing in ways that I didn't necessarily intend.
I like to sing. I write music. Country songs. You have to if you're in Nashville. It's part of the lease. You sign a lease that says, I will write country songs and pay my rent on time.
I enjoy bluegrass, folk, gospel, and classical. I don't listen to music when I write. I sometimes listen to music just before I sit down to write.
There were aspects of stardom I didn't like, which were of no consequence, really, but the positive things far outweighed the negative. By the time I came to write 'Setting Sons,' I felt my writing was more like prose, set to music.
