I always think its easier for me to write without thinking about the strict meter that's required for songs and song structures and things like that. It's much easier to just write on the page.
Even when I don't think I'm writing, I'm writing. There's some part of my brain geared toward making songs up, and I know it's collecting things and I know when I get a moment to be by myself, that's when they come out.
I think I always thought of the guitar as the vehicle to be able to make some musical idea up. The only appeal to learning more chords was having more chords to put into songs. I never got too wrapped up in becoming technically good. So writing songs happened pretty simultaneously with learning how to play the guitar.
We just keep making the shows that we love, and the good news is that we can never rest on our laurels, knowing that we're going to be on forever. We're constantly challenged to write the very best story that we can, week in and week out, hoping that that will allow us to keep telling more of them.
What's actually amazing is that, after a couple of years of living with characters and writing characters and talking about characters, as we sit in the writers room and break episodes, it strikes you, every once in awhile, that you're talking about a character that's played by the same actor, who you've been talking about forever. We talk about a character dying, so you get emotional, and then you realize, "Oh, but wait, that actor is still on the show."
hen, there's such a temptation to just constantly write things that are going to make the fans happy. Sometimes it takes a little bit of unhappiness to make those happy pay-offs work better. That's something that is fascinating to us and I think has really changed the way that stories are told.
I know people my age (early 40s) who insist upon only writing. You know what we call them? Ex-journalists.
I think the songs I was writing after Aeroplane were full of a lot of undealt-with pain that was just a little too big... the issues seemed too large for me to confront intuitively through songwriting. I kept pushing it and pushing it. There are so many issues about being human and why people inflict pain on each other. There were seeds of all these things I hadn't dealt with. With just the personal issues, I felt I was in over my head, but then to write about it... To write you have to have at least a little bit of confidence you know what you're talking about.
My worlds are completely different. Painting is a peaceful world, and it's a different vibe than having a great match. You are able to look back at what you created when you finish. Recording music is an entirely different monster. When you finally write something, you do a demo and then you go into the studio. Doing the master version, that's the best feeling ever - especially when you're so proud of what you've written, and you can't wait for people to hear it. That's actually very similar to trying to tell a story in a wrestling match.
I got into writing and thinking about politics because I was told there would be no math.
In fact you can begin to discover and investigate whether you are an actor or not, whether you're in my view, qualified for a life in this profession or in this endeavor by checking yourself out and acting every day, getting plays and scripts and getting together with people and divvying up the parts and acting in one way or another, or writing things.
People would say, Can we develop a sitcom around you? and I would say, Not interested. I'm very happy doing standup and writing and taking my kids to school.
Graphic design was largely about communication in an artistic or creative manner, much like writing is used to convey ideas. Many designers completely miss that aspect of the "art." Some are completely satisfied with just making things pretty, without taking the communication element into consideration.
When I read any book, if it's really good I get lost in the writing whether it's fiction or non-fiction. I'm in the story not thinking about who wrote it.
There's no real formula for doing it, it's either just living life and writing down a joke you think of in the middle of the day and then pieces those together later.
I also write plays, so I understand the writers mind, and how obsessed you can get writing.
Every actor just wants good writing.
My dream project is a sports film, because I love writing emotional music and a sports film is one of the few places you can do it without being melodramatic.
I've actually done more [music for] films than television. I love the process of writing for a film. I love that you are creating this suite of music for a film, that's all tied together sonically and thematically and hopefully people associate with the film. They all are meaningful to me in different ways.
After I write a sequence, I just open the script and then sit at the piano keyboard and "play" the script. (And because I also draw and paint, sometimes I sketch out the action as well.)
There's lots of good movies where you feel that the dialogue could be improvised, but very little was. The "Big Lebowski" was like that where people say "oh, you know, that sounds so..." and we'd always go back and get every man, every ellipses in there the way these guys write it. Because not only is it saying what Michael wants the character to say but the way they all speak kind of creates this tone because it's not exactly real.
Song writing is about the male-female relationship. Yes, there are songs of, of brotherhood and politics but very rarely do we write about computers or, there are car songs, cars are cool. But even in the car songs, it's, ah, usually gets down to me and my baby and my car.
My intention was always to direct and writing things just became convenient and happened.
It's not at all uncommon for a writer to get a ton of publicity for one book and then not get as much for the next one. I don't worry about that because I try to worry about the one single part of the job I can control: the writing of the book. If I do that well, I feel, good tidings generally will follow and readers will stick with me.
Keep your head down, avoid all the distractions of being a writer todayall the shifts in the business, all the drama, all the debating about where publishing is goingand write the best story that you can. It sounds a bit glib, but I think this is advice a lot of people are having trouble following right now. It is so hard to focus. But that is the single key to success.
