Language is not just a code; you are writing into its history, into its tides.
So when I started writing my own stuff, it was with a lot of combinations and time changes and power.
With writing, timing is everything. Being in the right place at the right time.
And I have this little litany of things they can do. And the first one, of course, is to write - every day, no excuses. It's so easy to make excuses. Even professional writers have days when they'd rather clean the toilet than do the writing.
I've always looked upon the Ducks as caricature human beings. Perhaps I've been years writing in that middle world that J.R.R. Tolkien describes, and never knew it.
Writing tonal music now, you are not writing into the 19th Century.
I end up writing about all kinds of things. I never make an attempt to write about anything in particular. I don't have a little list of topics to write about.
It is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market. hares have no time to read.
I have been tossing around the idea of writing some non-fiction. Maybe a collection of short stories about my experience being a mom and how not to be perfect.
I didn't start writing with band arrangements until I was working on 'Tramp.'
I try to be as honest as I can in writing. That's what ends up translating and relating to people.
I think the close work I do as a translator pays off in my writing - I'm always searching for multiple ways to say things.
If a translation doesn't have obvious writing problems, it may seem quite all right at first glance. We readers, after all, quickly adapt to the style of a translator, stop noticing it, and get caught up in the story.
I think some of the best modern writing comes now from travellers.
Literature has been a treacherous site for black Americans because literary production has been so tied with the project of proving our humanity through the act of writing.
When I am writing, I'm very much on the ground, on the same ground my characters are treading.
I love Bruce Springsteen's writing, but I grew up on '90s hip hop, like Tribe Called Quest.
The true art is being able to take whatever the writer's done, and if it is a bit flimsy or it is a bit rushed or is just box-ticking writing, then the true artist would be able to make that come off the page and sing for an audience or a viewer. I'm still learning how to do that properly.
In the summer of 2010, I had decided to get into film and TV writing, so I wrote scripts for six different ideas I had developed, and the pilot for 'True Detective' was one of them.
You're successful if you can get one person to pick it up and put it on the turntable and go, Wow, thanks for writing that!