Motion pictures are a director's medium. Broadway is a writer's medium. Television is a producer's medium. I picked a medium I could control.
There's a way in which filmmaking is a director's medium and television is a writer's medium, so even as TV gets more cinematic, it's still guided by the writer.
They say that theater is the actor's medium, television is the writer's medium and film is the director's medium, and it's really true.
I love being an actor, and that's really the bottom line - in any medium, in any genre - and I want to do it.
Ask not of me, love, what is love?
Ask what is good of God above;
Ask of the great sun what is light;
Ask what is darkness of the night;
Ask sin of what may be forgiven;
Ask what is happiness of heaven;
Ask what is folly of the crowd;
Ask what is fashion of the shroud;
Ask what is sweetness of thy kiss;
Ask of thyself what beauty is.
People talk about medium. What is your medium? My medium as a writer has been dirt, clay, sand--what I could touch, hold, stand on, and stand for--Earth. My medium has been Earth. Earth in correspondence with my mind.
Follow what you love!... Don't deign to ask what they are looking for out there. Ask what you have inside. Follow not your interests, which change, but what you are and what you love, which will and should not change.
When people ask what you do, tell them you're a writer. Put yourself on the line. Make a commitment.
Exactly as we might ask God, and do ask God, to change our fate. The difference is that in the story the writer actually replies and in the end even changes his mind.
I loathe high/low art distinctions in any case, so the crossing and re-crossing of that line is an act to be savored and celebrated, regardless of how it turns out. I consider that transgressive aspect of the medium one of its great strengths. In the way comics is both words and pictures while being neither, comics is the Trickster's medium, and as such I would be happy if no one ever knew what to do with it.
If anyone asks me whether I like being a popular writer, I ask them whether they think I'd rather be an unpopular writer.
Nothing, not love, not greed, not passion or hatred, is stronger than a writer's need to change another writer's copy.
In the TV world, we are seeing a lot more power going to the writer. I sense it is a writer's medium.
The role of the writer is not simply to arrange Being according to his own lights; he must also serve as a medium to Being and remain open to its often unfathomable dictates. This is the only way the work can transcend its creator and radiate its meaning...
Someday, as an exercise, you might ask a writer to give himself the questions he wants to answer. If you really want a writer's opinions, you have to ask for them. What you read might surprise you.
Never go into debt to become a writer. Always find other ways to support yourself so you can do the work you truly love for the right reasons. Never ask your art to support you. If you ask your art to support you it will either end up comprised or you'll be disappointed with it. It's a lot to ask of creativity for it to provide for you financially. Find a scrappy way to get by and then do the work you love for the reasons you love.