You take a poll of any people. What is it they want? The right to write an editorial as you like? They want homes, medicine, jobs, schools.
I really wouldn't call a lot of what's online "literature" since that word, to me, refers to a sub-genre of writing that belongs to the heavy-hitters, the canonical writers, Shakespeare, Dante, Milton, Dostoevsky, Kafka, and even Toni Morrison, George Saunders, Thomas Bernhard, Sebald, Borges, DFW, e.g.
I'm an only child and an American and am wholly in favor of uniqueness of voice in everything, especially music and writing.
Online writing is supplementary, complementary, another part of the whole, something that's only as important as one's investment in it.
If you want to change things in the USA it's best not to spend all your time writing but to take action against the ol' sea of troubles.
There's a ton of good art and music and writing out there offline among a ton of trash, and the same goes with what's online.
I think if you have the compulsion to write, you're not going to feel whole until you start putting words on paper.
I have ALWAYS wanted to write - I was the seven-year old entering local library poetry contests, and I recently found my eighth-grade yearbook when we moved, and I had listed "WRITER" as my future occupation. It's always been something I've been hungry to do, but I think the more practical side of me (encouraged by the more practical sides of my parents of course) shied away from pursuing a career in creative writing, in favor of something a little "safer" like law.
In a way, 'Billy Elliot' was autobiographical. I can't dance, but I think his dancing was me discovering about writing and literature.
Writing on the road is a passion of mine.
Some people take pictures, I write songs.
All of us write wish fulfillment.
I don't know what the secret is when I am writing it - it really is a surprise to me.
I always wanted to be in the world of entertainment. I just love the idea of an audience being happy with what I am doing. Writing is showbusiness for shy people. That's how I see it.
We definitely set out to make a great 'radio' record. We set out to write great hooky choruses-but with verses that said something.
Even listening to a lot of other music inspires me, too. Like I'll find something and be like, "I love this group!" And I want to write something that's kind of like this.
I know society these days, I know people are wanting to find everything they can to pick things apart, but I have to write from my heart and my experiences, and I fully own them. Those are mine to share.
I didn't really think I would be a musician. I always thought I'd be a writer. I wanted to be a writer in college, but I thought I could be a better musician. I loved the process of writing music and lyrics more than I loved the process of sitting at my computer and writing. Because of that, I thought I would be a better musician than a writer.
The Dream Lover is a historical novel at once expansively researched yet intimately imagined. George Sand may be the ultimate Berg heroine. 'A life not lived in truth,' Berg writes, 'is a life forfeited.' In this latest work, Elizabeth Berg has poured her own great gifts and her own great heart into the story of a woman determined to refuse any such forfeiture, no matter the cost.
What I enjoy most are those times when I get an idea and it just flows - the words coming so fast that I'm scribbling to keep up with my characters. I don't have any writing must-haves; this is a good thing, since I've done a lot of my writing in random places like the playground or the subway.
I think when I write movies and plays and books and magazine articles, they're all storytelling, and reality is the common denominator that binds them.
When I'm writing about complicated subjects, it usually involves a world. It could be the world of Scientology or the world of Al Qaeda, or the world of counter-terrorism.I look for emblematic beasts of burden - what I call "donkeys" - who can carry the reader through this world. They serve a different purpose. Donkeys are not especially interesting or likeable, but they are serviceable. They will take you into this world. The distinction I'm trying to make is: It's not about them. It's about the world.
I don't want to constantly be writing about terrorism and strife.
There are times when quantity is at least as important as quality in learning an art.
Am I missing something because of my lack of education? Being an intellectual - I'm not. So I hire him as a corner man, like a boxer; he watches me and tells me what I do wrong before I go in for the next round. Barry thought he was going to write what became Executioner's Song, and I told him he wasn't going to. And Barry's closest friend was Joan Didion.
