I expect that in 40 years' time I'll be writing political tomes and working for an organisation like Oxfam.
Talking-head shows are just a camera, a sound guy, and then a PA writing down what you say and a producer asking you questions. And you're just supposed to rephrase the question and add a joke to it. Figuring out how to do that was super hard.
The Pakistani writers are addressing change and what's happening today in the world. There is something completely contemporary in this writing.
I really do love 'Panama.' But I'd also have to admit that right now, if I were driven to write another novel like that, I wouldn't even try to find a publisher for it. It simply wouldn't be published. I'd be writing it to put in my closet upstairs.
Writers of fiction should stick to writing, not pop up on panel shows or as a talking head.
When I started writing, I just hoped for a nice little paperback series.
As a memoirist, I may claim to write the easier-to-remember things, but I could also just be writing to sweep them away. 'Don't bother me about my past,' I'll say, 'It's out in paperback now.'
When I am writing anything in general, I just want to tell the story that exists in my head; I don't try to write a parable or make a point.
I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not.
After I finish writing a chapter, I'll print it out, cut it up into paragraphs, and cut away any transition sentences. Then I shuffle all the paragraphs and lay them out as they come. As I arrange and hold them next to each other, very quickly a natural structure for the chapter presents itself.
I'm pretty disciplined to keep the momentum of a story going by writing everyday, even if it's only a couple paragraphs or a page or two.
I even dream about writing. I'm talking seeing words across the page, whole paragraphs.
I just wanted to write something about running, but I realized that to write about my running is to write about my writing. It's a parallel thing in me.
The writing became a hobby in the background: it took a back seat to parenthood and being a person and being a human being.
I was very involved in political satire, and I'd been writing parody for 'Mad' and 'National Lampoon,' so I made up some strange story about Gerald Ford.
'Flaubert's Parrot' is an amphibious book in which what appears to be a personal essay about Flaubertian writing is gradually, delicately transformed into an extremely sad novel in which the differences between character, author, and narrator are less clear than they appear at first glance.
The first act is writing, the second act is filming, the third act is releasing. If you have to partake in the third act, it hurts the first act of the next one. It's like a prizefight. You get punched.
I think 'Cool Hand Luke' was probably the first movie in which I was aware of the writing as its own separate thing. It was that speech when the guy reads Paul Newman the riot act. The speech about going in the box.
After Mad Season, I started writing my own music for Pearl Jam and brought it in. 'Given To Fly' came out of that, and so did 'Faithful' - those were on 'Yield,' which came after Mad Season.
Public school teachers from every corner of America post classroom project requests on DonorsChoose.org. Requests range from pencils for a poetry writing unit to violins for a school recital to microscope slides for a biology class.
