I write on big yellow legal pads - ideas in outline form when I'm doing stand-up and stuff. It's vivid that way. I can't type it into an iPad - I think that would put a filter into the process.
People read legal writing differently. When you're at the crux of a legal argument, every step is a step in the argument. The judge will see any holes. If you do that in fiction, it's too long and boring.
I have terrible handwriting. I now say it's a learning disability... but a nun who was a very troubled woman hit me over the fingers with a ruler because my writing was so bad.
When I was first learning songs, I'd have a favorite song, and I'd take the chords and twist them around. I'd learn the chords and then play them backward. That was my first experimenting with writing a song.
I think you need to understand games to write them. There's a learning curve, just like there's a learning curve in anything. It's not precisely the same as film or television, but you're using the same muscles.
I decided to become a surgeon named Bernie who writes books and gives seminars to teach people what he has learned and is still learning about how to deal with life's difficulties.
I think young people are the most creative and the coolest - people that we should be learning from. Even when I'm at a party, I'm analyzing it and thinking about it in the context of how I would write about it. That side of me never switches off.
Part of the joy of music is listening to lots of different kinds of music and learning from it. Specifically for me, I like writing songs that move me, and what moves me are beautiful songs on the piano or the guitar and really, really heavy music.
I've been writing music since 4th grade, and I love putting words together and expressing things in a way that you can move your head to and you can really relate to, because I have a lot to say.
I try to write the books I would love to come upon that are honest, concerned with real lives, human hearts, spiritual transformation, families, secrets, wonder, craziness - and that can make me laugh.
Whenever I realize I'm being a goofball, I write it down. When I release the joke onstage, I love watching the effect it has on the audience. No one wants to see someone talk who takes themselves too seriously.
I'm a big fan of Yoko, one of those weird people who really love her music, and who argues with people all the time, because people do write her off.
'If I Should Love Again' - I was just so impressed with myself writing something like that. It wasn't a single and people didn't really know about it, but it's a beautiful song and that's part of what I'm loving.
I write about emotions - falling in and out of love, finding what you want to do, no matter where you are or who you are. I think that's why people feel connected.
No matter how many books you've written, whenever you sit down to write a new book, you always feel the same challenge - how do you shape this story into a book that people are going to love.
I love telling stories and I love writing so the fact that I can do it professionally is something that I've always been very grateful for.
I grew up reading comic books, pulp books, mystery and science fiction and fantasy. I'm a geek; I make no pretensions otherwise. It's the stuff that I love writing about. I like creating worlds.
I love bouncing my words off of someone else's, and the fact that writing a story with someone else guarantees you'll get something you never, ever would have written on your own.
But long story short, I didn't start doing stand-up because I wanted to have a TV show or be an actor or even wanted to write sketch comedy. I got into stand-up because I love stand-up.
I love my music, so I want to produce, write, and serve my music. I've had to learn about EQ frequencies and programming and space and clutter and how to be a better piano or bass player - everything.
I love directing. I love creating things that I don't necessarily even have to be in. I like creating worlds. So I'm getting into writing movies and selling movies and television shows and creating worlds that then get to live beyond me.
