A Quote by Benjamin Clementine

That's how I always try to start my thoughts. I write them down first, eventually it turns into a poem, and if I feel like composing something to it, then I do that. — © Benjamin Clementine
That's how I always try to start my thoughts. I write them down first, eventually it turns into a poem, and if I feel like composing something to it, then I do that.
When these resources are degraded or polluted, then there are fewer of them for the rest of us, and then we start competing for them and eventually as we compete, there are those of us, who have the capacity, who have the ability to be the controllers, to decide who accesses them, how much they access, and eventually there is a conflict. Those who feel marginalized, those who feel excluded, eventually react in an effort to get their own justice, and we have conflict.
Every time you finish something ... you figure you've finally learned to write, right? Then you start something else and it turns out you haven't. You have learned how to write that story, or that book, but you haven't learned how to write the next one.
I try to just keep chipping away at, you know, this little idea you may start with and then work on something for seven, eight months. Eventually it just kind of turns into something.
A trick I picked up from reading Frank Miller scripts: ... He tended to always start his panel caps sometimes with a general noun and a verb. 'He weeps,' and then there'd be whatever else. And a couple of collaborators of mine have always said that the first sentence of my script is for them, and everything else that comes after is for me. Which is true, that's very much how I try to write. The first line is just to get the physical action down, and then I'll kind of drift off into whatever else I see in my head and they can take it or leave it.
I always write a thing first and think about it afterward, which is not a bad procedure because the easiest way to have consequential thoughts is to start putting them down.
I try to write about small insignificant things. I try to find out if it’s possible to say anything about them. And I almost always do if I sit down and write about something. There is something in that thing that I can write about. It’s very much like a rehearsal. An exercise, in a way.
I write lyrics really fast. When it's time to write, I usually put them off until the very end and then when it's time to write I can just sit down: I sing the melody, whatever the melody is, because that's the first thing that's already been there for a long time; I start singing it and I start creating consonants and vowels; then they turn into words; then all of the sudden one sentence will happen; then that sentence will dictate how the rest of the sentences happen.
Advice? Focus on the craft. Study the greats. Try and understand how and why they made the writing choices they did. Then, start by copying them...just as an exercise. See if you can do similar things. Learn how to write a song like so and so. Then, when you've done that, write a song like yourself. Learn to color within the lines before going outside them.
For me songwriting is very...it's almost like an accident. 'Oh I accidentally wrote about that.' I sit down with the urge to write a song and then afterward it turns out being really personal. I get really overwhelmed by how I feel a lot and sometimes - I feel like my body and my brain can't deal with all the different emotions and I feel like I'm just going to explode.
I always see nice images like that but I don't know what to do with them. I guess you share them with someone. Or you write them down in a poem. I had so many of those little images, but I never shared them or wrote any of them down.
Write down how you really feel, not how you wish you felt or how you think you should feel, but how you really feel. Don't try to change it. Honor it: "This is how I feel." Express it, and then it's not suppressed and stored somewhere in your liver or somewhere else.
It's always been difficult for me to speak and express my innermost thoughts. I prefer to write. When I sit down and write, words grow very docile, they come and feed out of my hand like little birds, and I can do almost what I want with them; whereas when I try to marshal them in open air, they fly away from me.
I never really write the jokes. I just sit down over a week or two and try to figure out what I want to talk about. Once I narrow that down, then I start working on the material, like "How do I make this stuff funny?"
For me, form is something I locate in the process of writing the poems. What I mean is, I start scribbling, and then try to form the poem - on a typewriter or on my computer - and, by trial and error, try to find the right shape. I just try to keep forming the poem in different ways until it feels right to me.
Write down everything you can think of, no matter how stupid it seems. I always write down my thoughts throughout the day. Sometimes good things come out of it, and I'll find an idea to develop into a song, so my best advice is to try and draw inspiration from everyday things.
I try to write every day, preferably first thing in the morning. Of course, there are days when something happens to interfere with this ideal schedule. Then I try to find time later in the day. I usually work at home, but sometimes, for a change I'll go to a library or a cafe. And I like to read poetry before I sit down to write.
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