It's important, I think, for a writer of fiction to maintain an awareness of the pace and shape of the book as he's writing it. That is, he should be making an object, not chattering.
Nothing beats novel writing because it's complete expression of you. You just control everything. Not even a movie director has that level of control.
[Science fiction is] out in the mainstream now. You can tell by the way mainstream literary authors pillage SF while denying they're writing it!
I don't know what the inspiration for most of songs really mean until I finish them. For the most part, I'm going for a visceral impression, and I write the words last.
Obituaries were among my favorite to write because they have elements no other news stories have - a story from start to finish with a proper conclusion.
The first set of lyrics for the first songs I ever wrote, which are the ones on 'Pretty Hate Machine,' came from private journal entries that I realized I was writing in lyric form.
I have an obsession with knowing the answers to things. When I don't know what happened, it just bothers me, gets under my skin, and I need to write about it.
The thing that happens remarkably often is that the people who are writing a dissertation believe they need to speak to me in order to do their dissertation. They need to interview me.
In the end, one has to feel lucky that things fell out O.K. I've felt that all the years I've been writing plays.
I am not somebody who meets a man or a woman somewhere and feels like that is an incredible character that I must write into a play.
Each night before I go to bed, I take out a small card and write a list of the things I need to do the next day in order of their priority.
I'm writing a novel about two actresses who go to New York, because that's what I know about. One has lost touch with reality, disappears and is picked up by a man.
So, why do you write these strong female characters? Because you’re still asking me that question." [ speech, May 15, 2006]
That was my challenge as a composer. Like with anything, to keep yourself interested in doing what you do, you set yourself challenges. So I said, Okay, I'll try to write a hundred tunes in a year.
With the rise of software patents, engineers coding new stuff - whether within a large software company or as kids writing smartphone apps - are exposed to a claim that somewhere a prior patent is being infringed.
Writing for me is quite a plastic form, a kind of mental sculpture, although that sounds weird. It acquires its character and its depth as it goes along.
You lose your anonymity just like a helium balloon with a string. Therefore people are going to have their own opinion and they're going to write in whatever clever manner they desire.
I write flawed characters. Ones that do not always make the best decisions and are driven by ambition or lust. They are not black or white, they are in the large space that exists between.
The Professional Children's School, it's for professional kids, so if you wanted to ditch, you could just write, Audition on a note and leave. I didn't really like school all that much.
Hands down, the biggest thrill is to get a letter from a kid saying, I loved your book. Will you write me another one?
Very often, writing a song is a process that happens to me rather than one that I instigate. I feel a song coming on and, like a sneeze; I wait for it until it comes.
