I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. I'm just writing songs that I like, and that's where I've always come from.
I earned my writing stripes with a large man's shoebox overflowing with rejection slips... more than 100 before I got my first, 'Yes, we want this,' accompanied by a check.
Sometime early in life, I developed the notion - one which I have never relinquished - that writing a novel is the very finest thing a person can do.
Quite simply, my writing life has been one of relish, challenge, excitement.
I'm not sure why writing for others became harder. Probably a reluctance to give away anything you might conceivably use yourself caused a block. I did it, but it remained hard when it had once been easy.
My writing is remarkably non-confessional; you actually learn very little about me.
Actually, I can't remember when I was not writing.
When the poet is in love, he is incapable of writing poetry on love. He has to write when he remembers that he was in love.
I think writing is an act of remembrance, I think that Instagram is an act of remembrance, and I think curating a show is an act of memory, too.
I felt that Stephen had become such a significant figure, a scientist of such international renown, that at some future date, someone would be sure to attempt an inaccurate, sensationalised biography, possibly including me, possibly writing me out of the script.
The first thing my writing ever earned me wasn't an advance on a book; it wasn't a fee for an article or anything like that. It was, in fact, a residency at Hedgebrook Farm.
Reading is an activity subsequent to writing: more resigned, more civil, more intellectual.
It is not important for me as a writer that you leave a piece of writing of mine with either an agreement or even a resonance with what I have said. What is important is that you leave with the resonance of what you have felt and what you thought in reaction to that.
Even though I've reached retirement age, I still plan to work - writing my investment newsletter, speaking at conferences, publishing books, and producing conferences like FreedomFest.
I have all these revelations as I'm writing. Each song is like a chapter of my diary.
Writing is thought crystalized on a piece of paper, which can then be reviewed.
I paint very messy. I throw paint around. So when I let myself do the same sort of thing with my writing, and I would just write and write and write and revise, that's when I found my rhythm in writing.
During the day, if I don't have any other commitments, I'm usually at my desk writing, revising, or researching anywhere from four to six hours.
I listen to a lot of different stuff, from Mozart to Johnny Dowd to Monster Magnet. I don't listen to music while I'm writing a draft, but I do listen to it when I'm revising.
Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.