I think substitution is a huge part of acting, but I don't personalise my work that much.
Throughout my career, when I have been rejected, there was sometimes subtext, and it was this: People will not read your work because these are not universal stories.
A writer can't subtract or excise any of his/her past because doing so would erase the work produced during that time.
I love the beautiful distractions of the world - television and movies, video games, the Internet in general. But I try really hard to avoid them, because they don't help me become a better writer. They subtract hours from my day. And a writer's main currency is time. Time to daydream, time to walk and think, time to sit and do the work.
People forget I go to work. They forget that the Coleridge house was bought and paid for by the daughter of a travel agent and a barmaid from what the actor Richard Burton once described as the nightmarish 'featureless suburb' of Croydon.
I can't change the preconceived notions a reader brings to a work, but I can do my best to be aware of, address, and subvert tropes and expectations that readers may have as best I can and hope I don't screw it up too much.
Business and growing jobs is about taking risk, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, but always striving. It is about dreams. Usually, it doesn't work out exactly as you might have imagined. Steve Jobs was fired at Apple. He came back and changed the world.
My life has been a happy accident. Anybody who succeeds in anything should count their lucky stars, because that's the biggest element. It's not hard work; it's not necessarily talent.
I'm not an overnight sensation. I'm a Texan. And I'm a Texas success story. I am the epitome of hard work and optimism.
The truth is, successful people are not ten times smarter than you. They don't really work ten times harder than you. So why are they successful? Because their dreams are so much bigger than yours!
I encountered producers who wanted to hang out after we worked, and when I refused, they wouldn't let me come back and work again... I would've have way more opportunities if I had succumbed. But it never felt right. I always felt like I was going to be successful, and I didn't want to compromise my morals.
I'm always so nervous when I have to do interviews or be on 'The Tonight Show' or the 'Oprah' show, where I have to be myself. I don't know why that's such a big deal - being yourself. But for some reason, I feel good in a dark room talking to actors about acting, doing acting. I like sitting backstage watching people work.
Sudan cannot afford to be on the wrong side of history. The north and south will have to work together, but will they?
You take all the things that frighten you, and when you can get them to work for you all of sudden people are calling you a success.
Once somebody is known, it seems as though anybody anywhere can say anything about them. Whereas if I simply stopped someone in the street and criticised their clothes, their work, their parents, their inner being, I'd be sued and I'd be thrown in prison.
Everyone enjoys doing the kind of work for which he is best suited.
Suits are looked at more now as a business thing which is kind of a shame. If you're not wearing it just for work, you should try and trick it up a bit.
Labels like 'Chinese Science Fiction' or 'Western Science Fiction' summarize a vast field of work, all of which are diverse and driven by individual authors, with individual concerns.
Normally I work out a general summary of what I mean to do, then start writing, and the details can be different from my anticipation. So there is considerable flow, but always within channels.
My grandma had a kids' clothing store for over 30 years called Shannon and Company, and my sisters and I used to go and work there in the summers.
