How I became a better writer was that I kept writing.
I write about whatever is timely - whatever is happening at the time for me - with what the expressive feeling is.
A lot of times people do spiritual practice just for themselves. I try to turn that a little bit. I try to make spiritual practice more a part of the community. I write about infusing people with compassion.
I sometimes have to write for a while before I figure it out, pretend that I know what I'm doing, sort of like ad-libbing on stage until you remember your line - you hope you sound convincing to the audience. The key is to have enough material, enough threads, so that there's something that can be satisfyingly drawn to a conclusion.
I love writing on trains. The joy of being a writer is it's all in your head; you don't need materials apart from the laptop. It's like taking your work home with you, so you can feel grounded in your own insane writerly realities wherever you are.
When Im writing, I spend all my time in The Grocer on Elgin buying ready-made meals; I think they are the only reason my husband and kids havent left me.
I've always thought it was important not to attach too much superstition to the space where you're writing, because once you get into the mindset that you can only do it a certain way in a certain place, your creativity can get blocked.
If I think about the writers I love or might be influenced by, I can't write at all, so I pretend there aren't any.
Exercise and writing are so therapeutic to me. I try to write every day and I make it a huge priority to find time to work out, even if that means taking a spin class at 7am before work.
I didn't quite know whether I was writing for the non-Muslim or the Muslim, and at the end of the day I'm writing, I hope, for people who are interested, whatever their faith. Even if they don't have any faith. As a barrister I had certain advantages - I could think like a lawyer and I knew how all the laws were fitted together and all the rest of it. One of the things I realized pretty early on while I was writing book about Shari'a was that that was as much a hinderance as it was a help because the Shari'a isn't just a system of rules.
Whenever one writes a book one should have a notional reader in mind.
The best time to write is when your life is in the toilet. Writing offers an escape from your problems, so if you force yourself to write when you're in the doldrums, it will have the perverse effect of cheering you up. At the very least, it allows you to inflict your pain on your characters, which has the dual effect of giving them more depth while relieving your own tension.
Staying healthy through movement and eating well gives you tons of energy and helps mold the skills that allow you to achieve goals from playing soccer to doing a tough homework assignment to writing a song.
Joseph Conrad and Heart of Darkness loom huge in my development as a writer. I think I'm always trying to write Heart of Darkness - trying to explode an abstraction in concrete terms, although I am aware that Conrad's story has a bit of baggage that I'd rather avoid in my work.
Work. Write. Read. Keep putting words on the page, because that's the only way you'll get better.
Maberry is a master at writing scenes that surge and hum with tension. The pacing is relentless. He presses the accelerator to the floor and never lets up, taking you on a ride that leaves your heart pounding. It's almost impossible to put this book down. Dead of Night is an excellent read.
All of a sudden it felt like people were peering over my shoulder, wondering what I would write next. I was blocked for four years.
My boyfriend suggested I write two pages a day. He wouldn't take me out if I hadn't done my two pages. That's how I wrote my second novel.
I'm in an odd position because I write across so many genres for so many people and they all influence me, and if I'm going to write as honest an album as possible, it's going to be layered.
It's a privilege to be able to have an idea and go into a group of executives and say, "I really want to write about this, and I really am interested in this," and for them to say, "Yes," and give you the money to make it.
Even though 'Glee' is sometimes a hard road, I am very excited about writing a multi-year arc.
I feel think the next logical step is acting, which I think is cool but I never got the acting bug. I never looked at a movie and thought "I wanna act," but after seeing that play I thought, "I wanna write a movie, and I wanna write a play." I will write a movie and I will write a play.
There will never again be a day exactly like today. There will never again be a moment exactly like this moment. After my next birthday, I will never again be the age I am right now. After midnight tonight, today will be part of history. Someday I'll be dying and I'll wish I'd done all the things I want to do now. Someday I'll be dead and I won't be able to do anything. But today, right now, I'm alive. And yet I'm writing nonsense on the back of my literature book. But I'm alive. And yet I'm just sitting here. But I'm alive.
It would just be a pamphlet. Three pages. The first page would be Drugs I Have Taken and then a list. The next page would be People I Have Slept With and then another list. Then the last page would be Famous People I Have Partied With and then another list. Because that's all people write in their autobiographies. Cut out all the bullshit and it's just a three-page pamphlet.
The only reason I do anything is that I just love writing songs. If I write songs, I feel good about it for days and that's the only reason I do it and it is the only reason I'm in a band. And it's the touring aspect, getting out there, seeing the world, meeting people. It's all I ever really wanted, you know. And it's kind of ever since I was fourteen, I was compelled to do it. I just don't really know what it is or why it is.
