I'm really just trying to hash out the next two weeks of my life. So, something that is potentially four months down the road is not just a mile down the road for me, it's a million miles down the road.
For me, writing something down was the only road out...I hated childhood, and spent it sitting behind a book waiting for adulthood to arrive. When I ran out of books I made up my own. At night, when I couldn't sleep, I made up stories in the dark.
I picked up On The Road, Howl, and Naked Lunch (in that order) in high school. I was blown away. The writing was amazing and the places it took me was even more far out. It opened up new avenues of thinking for me and so I went down the beaten road.
One of the great truths of Scientology is that increased awareness is the only factor which offers any road out. That is an awfully simple truth, but you'll find out that people don't know that. They think that less awareness is the road out - and that is the road down into the basement.
I've been writing fiction probably since I was about 6 years old, so it's something that is second nature to me now. I just sit down and start writing. I don't sit down and start writing and it comes out perfectly - it's a process.
I have my guy Semi who is my on the road - he's my personal trainer. He helps me out with training and stuff like that, and he's shown me a lot of things I can do on the road. We were trying to figure out something that I can do everywhere, like in my hotel room, so I don't have to have a gym.
Teaching and writing are separate, but serve/feed one another in so many ways. Writing travels the road inward, teaching, the road out - helping OTHERS move inward - it is an honor to be with others in the spirit of writing and encouragement.
When we are out on the road, running up and down the road playing shows, you have to be not only a member of a band but, especially with Lynyrd Skynyrd, you have to be a part of the Skynyrd nation. You have to be a part of the family.
Prowling about the rooms, sitting down, getting up, stirring the fire, looking out the window, teasing my hair, sitting down to write, writing nothing, writing something and tearing it up...
Writing, for me, is an extension of thinking - it's my way of processing, and only when I've gotten something down on the page have I thought through it fully.
Sometimes I get all the credit, and it makes me feel bad because I'm not the only one out here sacrificing everything. There are people out here on the road with me with kids and families, and they're out here busting their backs for me.
My biggest ritual is writing at home more than on the road. I do very little writing on the road. Actually, it's funny to bring this into it, but one thing I always do is have a cup of coffee. I drink the most coffee when I'm writing songs.
One of the things when you write, well the way I write, is that you are writing your scenario and there are different roads that become available that the characters could go down. Screenwriters will have a habit of putting road blocks up against some of those roads because basically they can't afford to have their characters go down there because they think they are writing a movie or trying to sell a script or something like that. I have never put that kind of imposition on my characters. Wherever they go I follow.
The computer is limited in expression. It can't do what the human player can do. What's dangerous is that you fall for writing for the computer and what sounds good on it instead of writing something that actually sounds good when a player performs it. It's dangerous when you go down that road.
I found out long ago, it's a long way down the holiday road. Holiday road, holiday road. Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. Take a ride on the West Coast kick. Holiday road.
If I'm not writing about myself, then I sit down with people I really dig writing with and throw 'em out and see if something sticks. Their brain plus mine hopefully will make something interesting and cool and it will just snowball and we'll have a unique song by the end of it.