Today, for a Jew who writes in the German language, it is totally impossible to make a living. In no group do I see as much misery, disappointment, desperation and hopelessness as in Jewish writers who write in German.
When you're writing for a sequel and there's a movie that's been deemed sacred ground by the fanbase that's the predecessor, you cannot do anything to tread on that, so it's a bit trickier than just being able to sit down and write something.
I don't write political plays in the sense that I'm writing essays that are kind of disguised as plays. I would really defy anyone to watch any of my plays and say 'Well, here's the point.'
People say to write about what you know. I'm here to tell you, no one wants to read that, cos you don't know anything. So write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever.
There's always a part of my brain saying: 'Stop getting comfortable. Don't relax.' Because I find it difficult to write when I'm happy. I have to go out there and get battered up and bruised to write anything. I have to feel something.
When you sit down and write a song, you kind of have the idea for the song, and you sit there at the piano and you kinda just write it. And then of course later there's some dinking around with it and changing some stuff.
My audience has really become a very diverse group of people. It's not just 15-year-old girls. That's kind of what allows me to write from all the different places I want to write from.
Like many writers, I started by writing short stories. I needed to learn how to write and stories are the most practical way to do this, and less soul-destroying than working your way through a lengthy novel and then discovering it's rubbish.
Write it down, boy. If you come across a passage in your reading that you’d like to remember, write it down in your little book; then you can read it again, memorize it, and have it whenever you wish.
You're reluctant to give too much away when you're going to put it out there for other people. It's harder writing your truest fears and loves and guilts, because you're not sure when you're writing the right story.
If you can make a movie, make one. If you can sing a song, sing it. If you can write a play, write it. If you want to run for office, run. But do something to make this world a better place.
Young readers are the most challenging, demanding, and rewarding of audiences. Adults often ask why I write for the younger set. My reply: 'I can't think of anyone I'd rather write for.'
The world is full of CEOs that think that just because they write a memo or they write a letter inside an annual report or they give a little video speech that gets sent around the company, they think that's what's really going to affect employees.
If you believe, as the Greeks did, that man is at the mercy of the gods, then you write tragedy. The end is inevitable from the beginning. But if you believe that man can solve his own problems and is at nobody's mercy, then you will probably write m...
I've never really suffered complete and utter writer's block, really. I equate it with sex: in the beginning of my career, I was writing five songs a week; now, I occasionally write a song. But it's an exciting moment when it happens!
If I knew anything about what people wanted and was popular, I'd still be writing for 'Saturday Night Live'. I can only write what I want, and hopefully people will like it.
My instinct is to absolutely recoil when talking about writing in a mechanistic way. Nothing could be dumber than writing a film or TV script based on prescriptions, on other peoples' ideas of what character should be.
I've always felt a bit of an outsider. It used to worry me that, in terms of TV, I did not look like 'the girlfriend' or 'the daughter'. That pushed me to write my own stuff, as I thought no one else was going to write me a lead in the sitcom.
You think you have no ‘talent’? Write anyway. lots of people with ‘talent’ don’t actually act on it. As long as you write, you will learn, you will improve, and you will be better than anyone claiming to have ‘talent.
Being a librarian certainly helped me with my writing because it made me even more of a reader, and I was always an enthusiastic reader. Writing and reading seem to me to be different aspects of a single imaginative act.
It gives me confidence to know that what I'm writing has a veracity of its own without me having to invent it. When I'm writing fiction, I must believe it to be true, or I can see no point in it.
