One of my favorite things I read was John Steinbeck's journals while he was writing 'East of Eden,' which was so cool.
My reputation for writing quickly and effortlessly notwithstanding, I am strongly in favor of intelligent, even fastidious revision, which is, or certainly should be, an art in itself.
'Firepower' is the eighteenth full-length studio album for Judas Priest. That's a lot of metal songs over the decades, and the writing process is always the same, really.
I could hear music playing in the background of works by certain authors, like Poe and Shakespeare. And I discovered Nikki Giovanni when I was in eighth grade. Her writing has a musical energy with pulse and rhythm, almost like jazz or hip-hop.
I started writing when I was 13. I got my first electric guitar when I was 13, but I'd always been singing. I had my first little acoustic when I was six. But I started being in bands when I was 13.
And eventually as I kept writing it, something emerged that was not quite me but a version of me.
I earned two Emmy nominations for writing, and two of the shows I had written were nominated for best in their category.
Lena Waithe won an Emmy for writing while starring on the Netflix show 'Master of None,' but it might be more accurate to call her a Master of Everything.
Ultimately what I end up writing about is helplessness and the flipside of that, empowerment.
'EIla Enchanted' began in a marvelous writing course at New York City's The New School.
Retiring from writing is to avoid the inevitable bitterness which a writing career is bound to deliver as its end product in almost every case.
There is certainly no one 'type' of writer who deliberately draws on Shakespeare. In fact, there's a strong argument that everyone writing in the English language is influenced by Shakespeare because, to a considerable degree, he shaped that language.
I never got any training in how to write novels as an English major at Oberlin, but I got some great training for writing novels from anthropology and from Margaret Mead.
I have experienced bad dating and ineptitude with women all across the globe, from Vietnam to Paris. When I was 21, women were an enigma; they were this code that had to be cracked. They were 'The Other.' I have often thought writing this stuff into stand-up and shows would be an exorcism, but it hasn't been; it makes no difference.
At 88 years old - with every intention of living decades longer - I'm still running a company, writing articles, launching new ventures, and fully enjoying life.
Getting your writing criticized can be a lot like getting skinned, and you respond to it just as enthusiastically.
I was inspired to spend an entire year - my 65th year - reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu's messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.
I've been writing my entire life, and I'll always write.
I've always been entranced by writing.
If I wrote in Michael Harrington's time, roughly 50 years later when he published 'The Other America', I'd still be writing about poverty and also entrenched racial injustice.
