I don't know where the idea originated that memoir writing is cathartic. For me, it's always felt like playing my own neurosurgeon, sans anesthesia. As a memoirist, you have to crack your head open and examine every uncomfortable thing in there.
When I was in my early 20s, my dream was to write mystery novels. I wanted to do what my favourite crime writer, Ross Macdonald, did - crank out a book a year. The only problem - and it was a considerable one - was that I stank.
If a translation doesn't have obvious writing problems, it may seem quite all right at first glance. We readers, after all, quickly adapt to the style of a translator, stop noticing it, and get caught up in the story.
How it works for me is that a scene comes to mind, usually a scene between the hero and heroine, that depicts the emotional conflict. From that scene, the characters come alive for me. I don't do a lot of preplanning in any way when I write.
Do you have to do murder? Do we have to do murder? Sure we have to do murder. There are only two subjects--a woman's chastity, and murder. Nobody's interested in chastity any more. Murder's all we got to write stories about.
Since signing with Universal, I have been working closely with Gary Ross, the director, producer and screenwriter. We have spent many hours on the phone, and I've been sending him information and items that have been useful to the writing process.
Armchair poverty tourism has been around as long as authors have written about class. As an author, I have struggled myself with the nuances of writing about poverty without reducing any community to a catalog of its difficulties.
While I do, of course, now feel the pressure having had books that have been very successful, I just know I have to concentrate on writing for myself. I can't worry about genres or markets or what might be commercial or not. That never works.
I try to write characters that are as real, emotionally and psychologically, as I can make them; I feel the same way about setting. This often means that I'm drawing from my experiences and observations.
I write in the mornings, two or three hours every day, and then at least four times a week I play in a duplicate game at a bridge club. I try to go to tournaments three, four, or five times a year.
Some people don't like my songs because they think they're too simple or easy or not that thought-out. I feel like the way I write is pretty simple, in some ways, because I'm trying to connect. I want a lot of people to hear it, and be moved in some ...
It's very lucky to be able to do a job where I get to sit about writing plays all day and going to the theatre. The downside, I suppose, is that you put it out there, and people are invited to like it or loathe it.
Easy reading is damn hard writing. But if it's right, it's easy. It's the other way round, too. If it's slovenly written, then it's hard to read. It doesn't give the reader what the careful writer can give the reader.
In a newspaper, you only have so much room. It teaches you the value of getting to the point, of not pampering yourself with your glorious writing. I've always been much more interested in one powerful sentence that stays with you. That's my style.
Writing is work. It’s also gambling. You don’t get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but essentially you’re on your own. Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don’t whine.
I wish I didn't have ever to sign my long name on the cover of a book, and I wish I could write a story that would seem absolutely true to the child who hears it and to myself.
I would be so mad if I saw something called a memoir, and then it was Mike Birbiglia. It would be so infuriating. It's like, 'Who is this guy, and why does he have a memoir?' David Letterman could write a memoir. Joan Rivers could. I'm just a nobody....
True writers know that writing is not something they feel required to do, or to make a living they must do, it is quite frankly like breathing. Some can breathe often and fluently, some short breaths, some a long exhale and for many of us it is the p...
At one time I was weary of verse writing, and wanted to give it up. At another time I was determined to be a poet until I could establish a proud name over others. The alternatives battled in my mind and made my life restless.
I think the only boundaries are individual and personal. A writer should be free to write about anything he or she wants to, including the twin towers. I have made small references to 9/11 in my past two books.
A lot of the songs on '2' are pretty personal, but even if I'm writing about something like that, I still tend to keep it pretty simple and open-ended. I like the idea of people listening to my album and it meaning something to me but maybe meaning s...
