I do so much revising as I go along; I wonder how I could write books if I hadn't grown up in the computer age. I think I'd be a very different writer. I find myself cutting and pasting, changing things around and deleting whole paragraphs constantly.
I watch movies and hang with my family, go shopping, love to cuddle with my dog, Happy, & write songs with my guitar!
With The Nightingale, I had been kicking the idea around for years. I was frightened to write it because on the surface it seems so different for me.
Coming up with the idea is the worst part of writing for me.
I see the emphasis on a lot of ideas and I know that's directed at me. [Megan Chance] come up with an idea, hone it, and write it. I come up with thirty ideas, flesh each one out, research each one, come up with characters, and then decide I don't like it.
I love what I call "re-imagining," where I throw everything up in the air and let it fall in a different way. It's not the most efficient way to write a book, but it's how I find the story.
I know that sounds ineffective and daunting, but it [throw hundreds of pages away] is actually my favorite part of the writing process.
I could never be a sports writer, unless my assignment was to write 'sports sports sports sports sports' for three pages.
I wrote my graduate thesis at New York University on hard-boiled fiction from the 1930s and 1940s, so, for about two years, I read nothing but Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James Cain and Chester Himes. I developed such a love for this kind of writing.
I've been waiting for someone to sign the permission slip for me to write about sex. In the meantime, I've written about sex in all my books anyway.
Objectifying your own novel while writing it never really helps. Instead, I guess while you're writing you need to think: This is the novel I want to write. And when you're done you need to think: This is what the novel I wanted to write feels like and reads like and looks like. Other people might call it sweeping or small, but it's the book you chose.
In The Interestings I wanted to write about what happens to talent over time. In some people talent blooms, in others it falls away.
When I write now, I pretend I'm holding hands with the old me. I try to make sense of all those questions for her.
I actually love writing for teens best. I had such an awful time in my own teen years - I love having the chance to relive them through my fiction.
If you're writing a screenplay, you need to be prepared to let go: there's a good chance the words you write aren't going to be the ones that end up on screen.
In high school, I was very active in extracurricular activities such as art, theatre, and choir. I also wrote for the school newspaper, but not regularly, because I never liked writing non-fiction very much.
In high school, I wanted to be an actress. Until I got to college and took some creative writing courses. Then I decided I wanted to become a novelist.
I used to draw and illustrate, but I don't do that anymore because I just like to write. I like to leave the illustrations to actual professional illustrators.
I think you get so wrapped up in the book you're currently writing, it's hard to think about anything else. But I know as soon as I'm done with this book, I'll move on to something else.
Cal: “Could you write a little bigger? I’m not sure China saw that.” Every Boy's Got One
I love writing literary stuff. My favorite writer is definitely Edgar Allan Poe - so imaginative and prolific. My second favorite writer would have to be Shakespeare - I love the emotion and human truths he touches on so beautifully.
Blending is just like writing lyrics or finishing up the song, rearranging and arranging.
I really love rap music. I grew up in the '80s and '90s with Public Enemy, N.W.A., LL Cool J - I'm a hip-hop encyclopedia. But I got kind of frustrated with the chauvinistic side of rap music, the one that makes it hard to write songs about love and relationships.
I love writing, composing and producing music. It's what I enjoy doing most in life and I create so much material that crosses over so many different styles that it would be virtually impossible to release all under one name/project. That's mainly why I like to create aliases and work on production for other artists as well. It just make sense. I just want to be able to have an outlet for all the different styles of music that I like working in.
I write because I am a Black woman, listening attentively to her people.
