I've always loved writing, and the impulse for me is storytelling. I don't sit down and think: 'What political message can I sell?' I love the creativity of it.
I'm a songwriter; that's where it starts. I love writing with someone that shares that same feeling of accomplishment. I'll play music for my fans as long as they'll listen, but I fancy myself as a writer first.
I think that's what I love about writing, is the ability to try to, in a sense, take a vacation from yourself and try to enter the sensibility of another time, another character, another place.
Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.
I'm not really a money-oriented person. The press always write that I am. They don't seem to want to understand that I love the comfort of Japan and love the fact it's more peaceful, less frenzied than Hong Kong.
Both back when I was acting and now that I'm writing, I've always wanted the same thing out of my career: to be able to get up in the morning and do what I love doing.
I'm writing what comes into my head, or through me, or from somewhere else, and it is the most extraordinary, exciting thing. I love it, and I'm very greedy, and I really enjoy it!
When we're falling in love or out of it, that's when we most need a song that says how we feel. Yeah, I write a lot of songs about boys. And I'm very happy to do that.
Sometimes I write quickly, sometimes I spend several weeks on a single poem. I would really love for readers not to be able to guess which of the poems took so much work!
As always, I wrote songs. Some people cook or play sports. This is what I love to do. Sometimes I can't express myself that well in talk, so I write songs.
I'm a 50-year-old guy making music for over 20 years. I've been writing songs since I was 20, so it's really been 30 years, and it's always been personal, but I've always told stories.
I was clear that I wanted to do music and I wanted to write songs. But I wasn't clear about how I was going to make that happen. I wrote loads of songs but didn't want to show them to anyone.
I feel like everything I write about is a gift I need to share because there is somebody out there going through a similar thing that might need to hear it. I know music helped me a lot. And still does.
I realised that the only time I really enjoyed music was when I was in the studio writing. So even though it was a six album deal, they saw quite early on that I wasn't enjoying it as I should be. I didn't feel there was anything behind it.
I'm very serious about what I write and who I allow to produce the music, because I want to make sure it's a true album, and not just something pushed out there to create hype and more fame for myself.
I'd like to teach kids how to write songs. This will be my first year so I'm just as green as some of the rest of the folks. It's like a music camp and I get to hang out with some of the past contestants.
I want to travel around the country and make my living playing music. I also try to behave in a way that I would appreciate as a music fan. That's how we conduct ourselves, be it in writing music or playing it live.
For me, the work begins with a rough cut of the film. I can't do much with the script. I've tried to write music to a script prior to seeing the film, but I've found it turns out to be a waste of time.
People ask me all the time which I would prefer doing more, but I honestly can't say. When I'm filming, I'm like, 'No, this is my favorite,' and when I'm writing music and recording and performing, it's like, 'This is definitely it.'
To me, it makes more sense to write different songs and to play different kinds of music and to find your own voice. But no matter what, get out and play for people. Get out and learn, and do everything that you can, you know?
First, I'd become an avid reader of blogs, especially music blogs, and they seemed to be where the critical-thinking action was at, to have the kind of energy that I associate with rock writing of the 1970s or Internet e-mail discussion lists a decad...
