I don't write particularly to effect social change. I believe writing can do that, but that's not why I write.
Being a journalist, being exposed to the world, to social injustice, to intolerance, growing up here, under apartheid, benefitting from that, has all shaped who I am and what my passions are, and of course that's going to come through in my writing.
Anyone interested in language ends up writing about the sociological issues around it.
I see myself writing in the tradition of urban ethnography and in the tradition of the sociology of poverty.
The DCU Constantine has to be the guy we know and love, with his same failings - otherwise what's the point of using him? But as I'm writing him, he's younger and has perhaps been through a bit less than the battered, aging old sod we meet in Vertigo.
When I'm writing a record, I kind of don't listen to much music. Just because I want to be inspired solely on the emotion; just based on how it feels.
To some extent, all authors are a little schizophrenic. We lead most of our lives in solitary confinement, living and breathing the books that we're writing.
The band projects just took natural priority. I didn't really have a solo career, just wanted to share the music in another way and to learn more about writing, recording, etcetera.
Writing is like travelling. It's wonderful to go somewhere, but you get tired of staying.
U2 is sort of song writing by accident really. We don't really know what we're doing and when we do, it doesn't seem to help.
Song writing is very serious; it is hard.
Song writing has been a lifeline for me.
I really didn't think about song writing.
Singing was probably my first love, and song writing. I write a lot of love songs and heartbreaking songs.
I love writing songs. I'm a songwriter.
Writing in English was a major challenge. I didn't want other songwriters to write for me. I wanted to preserve the spirit of my songs in Spanish. I am the same Shakira in English as I am in Spanish.
Early in my songwriting career, when I was learning a lot about writing songs, I'd force myself to sit down until I came up with something.
Lyric writing is an interesting process in Sonic Youth. There's three people writing now, and we've all had a lot of interest and involvement with expression through words.
The form I most enjoy writing is the sonnet or sonnet-like forms, where you have a - you know, three stanzas or two stanzas that lead into a concluding couplet.
There was a period in my life when I was very young that I wrote a sonnet a day just to learn concision in writing.