You know, if you were *really* going to starve, you'd be justified in writing proprietary software.
Anything that I write comes from the soul.
Characters simply come and find me. They sit down, I offer them a coffee. They tell me their story and then they almost always leave. When a character, after drinking some coffee and briefly telling her story, wants dinner and then a place to sleep and then breakfast and so on, for me the time has come to write the novel.
Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales.
Maybe people, maybe the world writes things off as impossible a little too quickly, when they really aren't - when they just haven't reached out and figured out how to utilize their resources to the fullest degree or created pioneering systems in their lives.
You have to be quite brave to write about something that you honestly feel and think.
When you do your research write down whatever interests you. Whatever stimulates your imagination. Whatever seems important. A story is built like a stone wall. Not all the stones will fit. Some will have to be discarded. Some broken and reshaped. When you finish the wall it may not look exactly like the wall you envisioned, but it will keep the livestock in and the predators out. (pg. 144)
I had never really thought of myself as a writer; any writing I had done was just to give myself something to draw.
When I first started making music, I didn't really know what I was doing. I just wanted to write songs. I didn't have a concept. I didn't think it through. I was just flailing around doing what comes naturally. It took me a really long time to step back and deal with what I was doing with any kind of perspective or self-awareness.
I'm not sure I would have ever decided to try to write when I was forty-five if I hadn't already gotten that degree [in English].
Not writing is as important as writing - go out into the world and remember how interesting it, and the people in it, are.
Reading the word and learning how to write the word so one can later read it are preceded by learning how to write the world, that is having the experience of changing the world and touching the world.
I am compulsive about writing, I need to do it the way I need sleep and exercise and food and sex; I can go without it for a while, but then I need it.
Writing in a lot of ways feels more like excavation than construction. It feels like you're uncovering this thing bit by bit, discovering what it is, instead of constructing it upwards.
I spent the morning smashing fliesI killed one fly against the doorjamb. Another I stalked into the kitchen. . . A third fly wavered by the kitchen window. When I swatted, a wild ferocious swing, a whole trembling crowd shot from the window like pebbles from a blunderbuss, then settled back. My heart pounded. I felt flushed with disgust and irritation. Why must I always have such obstacles to my writing?
To create tension, dialogue needs to be stretched out. That is, characters should not be immediately responsive.
Writing is a solitary pursuit and I think you have to be partially at peace with yourself, but it's the other part that's usually producing the stuff worth reading.
In stand up every joke is thought about so meticulously, and one word can completely change how the audience responds. You're up there with no safety net; you can't shirk responsibility. It's your thoughts; it's your voice. You can't blame it on the writing, you can't blame it on the editor. You are just up there completely naked.
Donald Trump creates word salads. And that is awful to language, because we try to parse out what he's saying and try to find meaning in it. Journalists don't have a choice about reporting what the president says. I find the idea - "Let's not write about his tweets" - to be absolutely ridiculous. I mean, he's the president! Of course, we have to write about his tweets and look at what they mean. The problem is, they're hollow. But we don't have the option of ignoring what he's saying because he's president. That's damaging to language, and to journalism.
Late night is no different than making a film, really, except that it's faster, and if you do a crap one, you can do a better one tomorrow. Writing a novel and doing stand-up - that stuff is very similar.
