I started writing seriously when I was 18, wrote my first novel when I was 22, and I’ve never stopped writing since.
That’s why ‘Chandelier’ was interesting to me… I wrote the song because there’s so many party-girl anthems in pop. And I thought it’d be interesting to do a different take on that.
I just wrote about childhood as I had known it.
Which is a wonderful irony, I have property there. I go back every chance I get. One of the main reasons I actually wrote the book, agreed to write it having never wanted to do that in my life, very intimidating by the way to write a book.
Modern scientific knowledge appeared piecemeal. Historians wrote about human history; physicists tackled the material world; and biologists studied the world of living organisms. But there were few links between these disciplines, as researchers focused on getting the details right.
I was born left-handed, but I was made to use my other hand. When I was writing ‘Famished Road,’ which was very long, I got repetitive stress syndrome. My right wrist collapsed, so I started using my left hand. The prose I wrote with my left hand came out denser, so later on I had to change it.
My father has a book where, ever since I started playing games… he wrote down the games that I played in. And then, when I did my website, we thought that was a really good idea, that people can keep track of my games.
Mozart wrote so many works in his thirty-five years that it would take a lifetime just to write out the notes. We literally do not know how he did it.
I wanted to write it long before I wrote Every Night, Josephine! I’d been thinking about it a long time.
One of my favorite songs is ‘Ghost’ by Indigo Girls. Emily Saliers wrote that, and she is one of the most talented songwriters ever.
It came about as follows: over the years when I was involved in dianetics, I wrote the beginnings of many stories. I would get an idea, and then write the beginning, and then never touch it again.
But I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic ideas seemed to me just the right thing for a poet. Passion! He was always on the right side. He may be wrongheaded, but his heart was always on the right side. He wrote beautiful poetry.
As a children’s author, reviewers are generally very nice to you. I only ever wrote one adult book and received such a kicking for it that I was in trauma for the next six months.
I write short stories, and I wrote a play.
When we started I wasn’t the singer. I was the drunk rhythm guitarist who wrote all these weird songs.
I wrote about wasting time, which I suppose is a part of the great human journey. We’re supposed to wallow, to go through the desert without water for a long time so that when we finally drink it, we’ll truly need it and we won’t spill a drop. It’s about being present.
When I was sixteen, I wrote the first hundred or so pages of a novel about a piano that was haunted by the ghost of an evil blues musician.
Eitan Hersh wrote a book in 2015 called ‘Hacking the Electorate.’ It’s pretty much the best book I’ve seen on the use of data science in U.S. elections and what good evidence shows works and does not work.
I wrote my first real murder story as a journalist for the Daytona Beach News Journal in 1980. It was about a body found in the woods. Later, the murder was linked to a serial killer who was later caught and executed for his crimes.
I’m So Sorry’ is probably one of my favorite songs that I’ve written… I wrote it very quickly and confidently. And then I didn’t question it.
Coming back to the topic of computer security, the TCP Wrapper is an example of such a safety net. I wrote it when my systems were under attack by someone who appeared to walk through walls.
I did The ‘Acid Test’ at the Royal Court, by Anya Reiss, who’s the most wonderful, amazing female writer. She was only 19 when she wrote it. She wrote it about three girls in a flat on a Friday night, and that was magic because it was so rare to have three girls in your age group in a play. It just doesn’t happen.
Remember that I wrote a pavane for a dead princess, and not a dead pavane for a princess!
I wrote a letter to the CIA on my manual college typewriter. I mailed it to CIA with my resume. I didn’t have an address. So I just put, ‘CIA. Washington, D.C.’
Shakespeare was a man who wrote poetry. I’m a man who writes poetry. Why not compare yourself to the best?
My grandmother passed at 104. She sang and wrote songs until she passed.
When I wrote the song, The Way It Is, I wanted to move people to take a stand on civil rights in this country.
I had written a novel that was more of a classic linear novel, and I worked on it and worked on it for years, and it always seemed like it wouldn’t catch fire. At a certain point I just scrapped it all, and I kept maybe 15 percent of it, and I wrote those parts out on note cards.
To me, Mozart is our Shakespeare, the one who wrote the most dramatic, psychologically most baffling music. He combined ideas that no one else would have thought of putting together.
If I wrote in a sonnet form, I would be distorting. Or if I had some great new idea for line breaks and I used it in a poem, but it’s really not right for that poem, but I wanted it, that would be distorting.
I didn’t write any music at all, and then, I remember Jon Anderson being very insistent saying that there were two kinds of musicians: the ones who wrote music and the ones who didn’t.
In terms of my Indianness, I try not to rely on it nor deny it. When it comes up organically in my writing, we can address it. About five years ago, we wrote this episode of ‘The Office,’ called ‘Diwali,’ which seemed like an organic way of using it.
Our founders got it right when they wrote in the Declaration of Independence that our rights come from nature and nature’s God, not from government.
The first novel I wrote was a monster – clocking in at 180,000 words – but it died a death, a death it deserved. It was called ‘The Gods First Make Mad.’ It was a good title, but it was the only good thing about the book. I didn’t let that put me off.
When my first child was born in 1962, I wrote a letter to my grandfather telling him how happy I was but how concerned; concerned because there were so many visions which were not very good.
In the first year, 1988, I wrote and sold 3 novels.
That’s what George wrote! He wrote it. Why change it? There was this European company that I was speaking about awhile ago – course, didn’t nobody know what Porgy was.
I wrote ‘(‘Til) I Kissed You’ about a girl I met in Australia. Her name was Lilian, and she was very, very inspirational. I was married, but… I wrote the song about her on the way back home.
Marx and Lenin were ahead of their time. Marx wrote before offshoring of jobs and the financialization of the economy. Lenin presided over a communist revolution that jumped the gun by taking place in a country in which feudal elements still predominated over capitalism.
I wrote each book in thirty-five days flat – just to get the darned thing finished.
When I wrote ‘The World Is Flat,’ I said the world is flat. Yeah, we’re all connected. Facebook didn’t exist; Twitter was a sound; the cloud was in the sky; 4G was a parking place; LinkedIn was a prison; applications were what you sent to college; and Skype, for most people, was a typo.
I wrote ‘Fight Song’ as this declaration to believe in myself, and that is similar to what you are taught to believe in Girl Scouts. Building confidence. Building character. And above all else, being there for each other as a community.
As a kid, I liked making up stories, and I wrote a story about a kangaroo and a bat with Christy Chang, and she went on to become a surgeon.
‘Rent’ was a special project for me. It was my first notable screenplay job. I worked with two wonderful directors on it, starting with Spike Lee in the summer of 2001. I wrote a draft for Spike and he was really good to me.
The first poem I ever wrote, about loss, when I was 5 years old, expressed the themes of everything I would ever write.
Well, I actually wrote her a letter a couple of days ago congratulating her. The tone I tried to convey in the letter is, look, you are a part of a great American historical process.
I’ve written on public matters, but I don’t understand how anyone could tout me as a possible poet laureate when I wrote a poem on the abdication of King Charles III or about the sex life of the Royals… anybody who knew my work would know I’m not a contender.
Initially, I’d written a normal love song. Later, I wrote Corona Kannala.’ I say cheesy because we used a lot of contemporary references.
I wrote my first piano piece when I was in 4th grade.
I wrote some bad poetry that I published in North African journals, but even as I withdrew into this reading, I also led the life of a kind of young hooligan.
That decision to commit your life to certain principles and a certain narrative, if I wrote a paper on that, I know I’d find inconsistencies.
I did know Ted Hughes and I partly wrote the book to explain to myself and others the complexities of a marriage that was for six years wonderfully productive of poetry and then ended in tragedy.
I wrote ‘Wish U Were Here’ for Cody Simpson, and he invited me to perform with him on tour and be in his music video. He was shy at first. I think it’s the surfer boy in him that makes him so mellow.
