I always try to write a song, I never just want to write a record. Originally I was not writing songs for myself. ....And I can say this, most of the people who have recorded my songs are songwriters themselves. ... Even if I don't release it myself, somebody else might hear it and want to record it. When you write a song, it gives it that potential. When you write a song, a song has longevity. ... So I wanted to sing inspirational music, and that's exactly how I approached it-only the words have been changed to declare my relationship with God. Songwriting is my gift from God.
Okay, this is Fran Lebowitz. She gave an interview once for the Paris Review about trying to write fiction and saying that fiction writers start talking about how characters are talking to them, and it's crazy, she's never had that. And I also thought, I'm never gonna be able to do this, because I didn't feel that for a really long time.
I have come to understand myself as more of a New York writer, or more of a woman writer, but I don't feel like that while I'm writing. But I think that most New Yorkers would object to calling me a New Yorker. I didn't grow up here.
Some of the writers I admire who seem very, very funny and very emotional to me can develop a closeness with the reader without giving too much of themselves away. Lorrie Moore comes to mind, as does David Sedaris. When they write, the reader thinks that they're being trusted as a friend.
I think it's hard to have a full-time job and write fiction, but for essays, you need to be in the world.
I write on weekends, on vacation, and, really - on deadline and on my floor. Both terrible for the back.
Yes. I am writing full-time. Which is strange. It feels like not having a job.
We're historians and above all want to write about what was. Our book doesn't deal with legacies. It also wasn't our goal to destroy a legend. We consider Walesa to be a national symbol. He led Solidarity and remains an icon. But he also worked with the secret police under the name Bolek. The truth isn't always simply black and white.
When I write songs for myself it's really personal and I just can't have someone else singing it.
I usually leave Reykavik for two to three weeks to go to the South Coast of Iceland where I have a small fisherman's hut from the beginning of the last century. That's where I sit down and do the actual writing. I might write for 16 hours a day or something. That's how it happens.
I'm not one of those writers who writes everyday.
I have to face questions like, "Do I simply write the best text I possibly can? Do I specifically engage with contemporary issues? 'Do I consciously try to write something that is timeless?"
There is this assumption that much of what I write is about my life, and that simply is not true.
All human states are organic brain states - happiness, sadness, fear, lust, dreaming, doing math problems and writing novels - and our brains are not static.
Good books, written by men or women, are ones in which you lose consciousness of the person writing the sentences.
Writing fiction is like remembering what never happened.
Say a thing well and it will be remembered-and so too will you.
Try writing...a list, a letter, a journal, a novel, a declaration.
Read something that YOU want to read, not something that you feel compelled to read.
What I hope is to really focus on being a songwriter. I'd love to write songs for other people; that's something I'd really like to start doing.
There's nothing in the recent past I want to write about.
I suppose the danger when you have a job that involves writing is you can be a bit isolated.
My favorite way of working is if somebody gives me a piece of music, because I'm quite limited as a player, so it's my favorite thing if somebody gives me a piece of music, and then I can write lyrics and melodies.
Don't be a writer. Writing is an escape from something. You be a scientist.
I was a bit shut down by a lot of the snarkiness and biliousness in some of the poetry blogs. I was tired of aesthetic wars that weren't productive and were becoming mean-spirited. I was probably overworked as well, so I stopped reading and writing for about a year.
