You have to go where the good writing is.
The ego being shattered is not what frightens me - that can be useful for writing - but the ego being inflated is sort of like it dying of gout.
I took my first creative writing class when I was 24, then went onto to get a graduate degree in poetry. I've sort of never looked back from there.
I had wanted to write 'The Possessed' as fiction, but everyone told me that no one would read a novel about graduate students. It seems almost uncivilized to tell someone writing a novel, 'No, you have to call this a memoir.'
Writing about Africa by Africans has been part of my literary apprenticeship, standing alongside works by authors such as Joseph Conrad, Joyce Cary and Graham Greene as influences.
Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.
I wasted a lot of years working on my writing and very grandly saying, 'And now... My Novel!,' which would soon be reduced to a short story, then to a paragraph.
Everybody's idea of a great book is different, of course. For me it's one that makes my jaw drop on every page, the writing is so original.
I fantasised about F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' - I loved it, and then I read everything J. D. Salinger had to offer. Then I was turned on to Kerouac, and his spontaneous prose, his stream of consciousness way of writing. I admired him so much, and I romanticised so much about the '40s and '50s.
Writing has become my great joy - I simply love it.
I had never written anything. And I had never studied writing. So my motives were pure: I had a great story... a courtroom drama that I sort of fictionalized, and that became 'A Time to Kill.'
I gave Joss Whedon and Judd Apatow their first writing jobs, as well as many other untried writers who went on to great success.
You become a great writer by writing.
To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make.
Writing 'Schottenfreude' has reinforced the fact that there are few, if any, emotions that have not been experienced, and analyzed, by some of the world's greatest writers.
The core plot of 'Mercury' is so gripping that when I thought of making it as a silent film, it only made it more interesting. Once I finished writing the first draft, making a silent film that's both thrilling and engaging seemed possible. When the film team read the final script, they felt the same.
If I'm grumpy I sure do enjoy writing The Walking Dead.
I'd been in Hollywood for five years before I started writing 'The Guild.' I worked enough to pay all my bills. So I was very lucky in that respect. Most people don't make a living acting.
When you're writing, in theory, everybody is serving you. When you're directing, you're serving everybody - in the guise of acting like everybody's serving you. But you're really serving the materials. You're serving the actors. You're in charge, but it's not free.
I was probably 7 years old when I started playing the guitar and writing some serious songs.
