It's funny, we started writing chick-lit when it was just becoming a crowded marketplace, and now the same thing is happening with YA. It really used to just be one shelf at the library - Nancy Drew and Judy Blume.
I feel for Veronica Mars so much when I'm watching at home. It is a wonderful story. The writing is consistently funny, biting, charming, heart-wrenching, etc. I also like the look of it. The cinematography - different from any other show.
I wouldn't totally rule out doing Letterman or the Tonight Show if I had a set that I just happened to write that I thought was funny but was still appropriate for network censors. But I'm not going to go out of my way.
I got to draw monsters, robots and write funny stories. I loved doing that stuff and working with the actors. But it got to be less and less that stuff and more about trying to be everywhere and not being able to do one thing very enjoyably.
I had a hip replacement a couple of years ago. I have a song about that. And why wouldn't you? It strikes me that that was a huge event. It's kind of funny and horrible and interesting, so why wouldn't one write about that?
I listened to this interview once with Jerry Seinfeld that really influenced my comedy and all of my writing, which is that when you're starting out in comedy, it's the audience that tells you what's funny about you. And you need to listen to that an...
When I was in improv workshops or doing stand-up or writing comedy with others, or just doing comedy, I just laughed. Funny was funny; I loved to laugh. I always liked people I found generally funny.
Given the current state of publishing, I think it helps to have a brand name on the cover of your book. Comedians are proven commodities with built-in audiences. They may not have the writing chops of a Dave Eggers, but they're salacious and funny an...
I really like writing heroes who aren't necessarily 'Hollywood handsome.' Personally, I think men who are self-confident, intelligent, and funny are outrageously attractive - and my heroines tend to think that, too!
I try to write stories that are thrilling and full of mystery and funny all at the same time, stories that raise moral questions but come up with very few moral answers, stories that emotionally touch readers through the characters.
When I decided to write 'The God of Small Things', I had been working in cinema. It was almost a decision to downshift from there. I thought that 300 people would read it. But it created a platform of trust.
I write a chapter, then edit it and edit it and edit it and edit it. I don't think we mine creativity from within. It's bestowed from on high, from God.
That's what it is every time you walk into the room to write with someone new. It's like, oh god I have to take my clothes off 'my creative clothes' and let them see all of my flaws.
God's revelation has always been in deeds. God's interventions in history have always been in deeds, in actions. Then there are those who interpret the actions, and then there are those who write down the interpretations of the actions.
But I always seem to finish a book and then think, oh God, I've got to pay a tax bill, so I'd better write a novel, so I tend not to stop and learn word processing.
Writing is my therapy. In addition to my real therapy. God knows where I'd be without it. I'd probably still be at my last job, working in HR at a religious organization. I was horribly miscast.
If my writing comes to a halt, I head to the shops: I find them very inspirational. And if I get into real trouble with my plot, I go out for a pizza with my husband.
Advertising isn't just the disruption of aesthetics, the insults to your intelligence and the interruption of your train of thought. At every company that sells ads, a significant portion of their engineering team spends their day tuning data mining,...
Allen Ginsberg was a world authority on the writing of William Blake, and had an incredible knowledge of classic literature and world politics.
At least for me, it takes more knowledge to write fiction than nonfiction. At least about someplace that I begin with a lot of ignorance about.
I learned how to write television scripts the same way I have learned to do almost everything else in my entire life, which is by reading.
