I'm sort of a Walter Mitty. I got fewer brain cells than most people, so when I got friendly with cowboys, I started rodeoing. When I was calf-roping, there was something about the dirt that made me feel clean.
It was difficult to step away. I've always been an athlete. And to give that up was extremely daunting. The looming factor of brain damage, to me, was too strong.
I think I'm connected to this issue in some capacity, football and brain damage. So carving out a way to address it tactfully is important to me no matter what I go on to do.
Beauty school gave me brain damage.
The press don't like to say nice things because nice is boring. It's much better to label me the devil. What we do is not brain surgery. We are entertainers, plain and simple, and we're responsible to bring that money back, to make a profit.
I think I'm still trying to find my feet as an actor. And I know it ain't brain surgery, but it confuses me and it comes between me and my sleep a lot.
Let me put it this way: I don't plan to retire. What would I do, become a brain surgeon? I mean, a brain surgeon can retire and write novels, but a novelist can't retire and do brain surgery - or at least he better not.
I try to speak plainly so that my constituents who don't follow the nuances of government like I do, because they're too busy earning a real living, can understand the issues before me. None of this stuff is brain surgery.
I know that people hate me. And I know I'm just a hack journalist and what we do on 'Lifestyles' isn't what you would call television brain surgery.
Filmmaking is a huge privilege; it's not brain surgery. It's art, and art is supposed to be an enjoyable process, and it is an enjoyable experience for me.
My husband calls me 'catfish.' He says I'm all mouth and no brains.
I work out most days, normally first thing, and then I just see where the day takes me. I recipe test most days, do lots of social media and emails, but nothing else is constant. Some days, I film YouTube videos; other days, I have lots of meetings, work on blog posts, brainstorm ideas, and work on upcoming projects.
Action set pieces are my absolute favorite thing to write. I'm pretty much always in the mood to do them, but music certainly helps the process. I usually brainstorm out the dynamics and choreography of a fight to music beforehand - it gives me the little sparks of imagination when I get to the gaps in my own creativity.
I'm very easily distracted unless I have music on. Listening to music while I brainstorm makes me think of scenes that would fit the mood of the music I'm playing.
The old-timers schooled me good. They brainwashed me to respect music, whether we were playing rockabilly or blues or rock and roll.
For me, in the third book, when Peeta gets brainwashed by the Capitol, that's going to be fun to play. The rest of the time he's very much into Katniss, and for that to get turned around and to play it the other way, that's going to be very exciting.
People who know me know that I'm a rabid fan of the Kansas Jayhawks. My quirky habit is that every Kansas game is on my calendar, and, more often than not, I will plan and schedule flights around them so that I can engage and watch. I have already brainwashed my family to be Jayhawks fans.
When I went through puberty I had a huge rebellion against movies. I was so upset with how they brainwashed me that I didn't watch movies for years.
I was aware, in those early days of motherhood, that my behaviour was strange to the people who knew me well. It was as though I had been brainwashed, taken over by a cult religion. And yet this cult, motherhood, was not a place where I could actually live. Like any cult, it demanded a complete surrender of identity to belong to it.
One of the things I like about the computer that I use is that I can write a program on it or I can download a program on to it and run it. That's kind of important to me, and that's also kind of important to the whole future of the internet... obviously a closed platform is a serious brake on innovation.
