Writing Quotes - Page 755

A multivalent culture is an amazing place to be writing theatre.

I found that life intruding on writing was, in fact, life. And that, tempting as it may be for a writer who is a parent, one must not think of life as an intrusion. At the end of the day, writing has very little to do with writing, and much to do with life. And life, by definition, is not an intrusion.

Think of a book special to you, and how much bleaker and poorer your life would be if that one writer had not existed - if that one writer had not, a hundred times or a thousand, made the choice to write. You're going to be that one writer one day for somebody you may never meet. Nobody can write that book you're going to write - that book that will light up and change up a life - but you.

Film and TV is a very hard profession to enter into if you don't have the ability to take a long period of time without making money so you can write, direct or raise financing, or work your way up, often with unpaid internships. It's hard to get into without a lot of connections. You end up with a lot of white people from privilege making films. So we're seeing a lot of the same kinds of stories.

It's a very romantic sentiment, but to think that you would die if you didn't write, well, I would definitely choose to not write and live

And music has always been incredibly cathartic for me, whether it's writing my own stuff or singing other people's music; it's very freeing.

If I'm not writing a thing, depression might be looming.

I see no reason not to write whatever comes to me.

It didn’t matter the quality of the writing— Callie’s fantasies about her fictional heroes were entirely democratic.

I don't think I ever had a morning where I woke up and said I'm going to be a professional poet. I know I've always loved poetry, I've always loved writing poetry and I've always loved sharing poetry. I've also always known that I wanted that to somehow be a very large part of my life and I'm very fortunate that it's such a large part of my life.

I write poetry to figure things out. It's what I use as a navigating tool in my life, so when there's something that I just can't understand, I have to "poem" my way through it. For that reason I write a lot about family, because my family confuses me and I'm always trying to figure them out. I write a lot about love, because love is continually confusing in all of its many glorious aspects.

Things that I have a hard time being able to fully grasp, sometimes writing the poem helps me work through it. Or I get to the end of the poem and I still haven't figured anything out, but at least I have a new poem out of it.

I write about love and family a lot, because I'm always trying to figure those things out. At different points in my life, just when I think I've finished writing about it, the dynamics shift, and then I have a whole new set of questions and worries and misunderstandings to wrestle with.

Our day-to-day lives are pretty chaotic. So in terms of the writing part, you have to get pretty disciplined about finding quiet moments and making sure you're making time for the art side, on top of all the time-consuming business side.

Thinking about writing as an act of celebration is sometimes a helpful framework for me. It allows me to prioritize what I want to call attention to and what I want others to know about me. It makes me ask: What is worth celebrating?

I write poems to figure things out

For some reason there's this myth that creativity - [especially] in terms of creative writing - is a gift you either have, or you don't. So when people first start writing, if they write something that's not very good, or if they try and it's difficult, they go, "Oh, I guess I don't have it." That doesn't seem very fair, you have to try and you have to work at it. If we get scared of one bad poem and quit, that's not doing anybody any good.

I write poetry to figure things out. Any time I’m trying to wrap my head around something, poetry is like a puzzle-solving strategy for me.

Usually when I'm in the van or if there's downtime, I'll just mess around in Garage Band and work out melodies or ideas I've had in my head. There was a period where I creatively plateaued and wasn't writing at all. But I have been creatively a bit more inspired lately - it has everything to do with moving and being in motion.

I was really kind of miserable with myself personally and all of the things that you can be creatively, until someone said - and I don't know what about it made it click at this specific time - but they said, "You're not 18 anymore, and you're not writing songs in your old bedroom. It's work. You should get up every day and set a perimeter of time and start compartmentalizing your life."

I create my own schedule, so you start out each day and you say, "Okay, from 10 to 11 I'm going to write," and on the dot at 10, I went downstairs, got dressed like I was going to work, and at 11 I stopped. I don't know why, what kind of wizardry about that worked, but having the structure for a month, I was dishing out songs.

There's a part of me, and I'm sure every single musician that writes for themselves has this: there's a layer of precious that you have to shed. I'm constantly trying to let go of, "Well, what about this, this would be cool." Some of that is needed, but a lot of it is total BS.

Lately I haven't been able to write for the guitar - it'll usually start out with a melody on the bass, and I'll layer vocals. I just can't really physically hear the guitar anymore, so I'll just go into GarageBand and play around with the keys. I'll sit on a melody or some lyrics for a really long time and just play with it.

Because I'm a musician aspiring to write good stuff and put on good shows, I'm hyperaware of what they're doing and what they're putting out. But listening now in a less critical way, I'm appreciating and admiring it even more.

When you write about people three dimensionally, it inspires a sense of empathy. That would be something that I want people to take away from all my writing, a feeling of emotionality, connection, and empathy.