My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.
Every sentence spoken by Napoleon, and every line of his writing, deserves reading, as it is the sense of France.
I have my favorite cat, who is my paperweight, on my desk while I am writing.
My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.
Paradoxically, the only thing that helps when I'm feeling despairing about writing is to write.
A lot of my writing and my detailing of scenes are based on my observations of life in Nagpur.
I don't feel that I wanted to spend my whole writing life - which is my life - writing detective stories.
Writing detective stories is about writing light literature, for entertainment. It isn't primarily a question of writing propaganda or classical literature.
As I work, I see my writing - each scene, each chapter, each section, each book - in three-act structures and classic myths, and I analyze them through the handy filter of the detective story.
Nothing induces me to read a novel except when I have to make money by writing about it. I detest them.
'An Octoroon' was written over about three years but premiered in 2014. I'm writing about America's relationship to its own history. Race or not, it's a story about suppression and oppression and many populations being devalued systematically.
If I got dropped tomorrow or every single I released from now on tanked, I'd be devastated, but I'd also still be doing this. I'd still be writing songs. I'd still be recording them. I was doing that for four years in Nashville. This is just on a larger stage.
I love stories - devising them, writing them, reading them, watching them, being a part of them.
I started writing diaries, and mine were horrible. Oh, the monotony. Oh, the angst. I said, 'I don't want anyone to find these!' I destroyed them.
I love learning about different dialects and I own all sorts of regional and time-period slang dictionaries. I often browse through relevant ones while writing a story. I also read a lot of diaries and oral histories.
I'm incapable of writing without social commentary. I like to think that it's integrated and not really heavy handedly didactic.
I am a diehard romantic, and I shamelessly accept that. I love writing letters.
I wanted to be the girl that talks about getting a guy. I felt like that was a different approach to writing.
Life begins at 40. I could attempt writing. Life is taking me into different directions.
Letters are something from you. It's a different kind of intention than writing an e-mail.
