I have to really think hard about how to structure sentences, and do more mapping when I sit down to write, so it does impose a certain discipline, intellectual and linguistic.
Writing doesn't come easily to anyone, I think, certainly not to me. But pressure and practice does lend a certain fluency, I think - the more sentences you write, the more sentences you have written, if that slightly Zen confection makes any sense.
When faced with something complex, spend the time to think about some structure, write down sentences, think about it some more, and then share it.
No complaining about how hard it is to write, we are all so, so lucky to write, to sit down, inside, and write words on paper. There is no greater freedom, no greater good, nothing that brings more joy.
I'm not a big believer in disciplined writers. What does discipline mean? The writer who forces himself to sit down and write for seven hours every day might be wasting those seven hours if he's not in the mood and doesn't feel the juice. I don't think discipline equals creativity.
When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough.
The songs I write are about how I feel and the vibe I'm in. So whether I'm on a tour or at home it's like all about how you feel in the certain time you sit down.
I don't know what I think about certain subjects, even today, until I sit down and try to write about them.
I can't help but admire the structural linguists who have carved out for themselves a linguistic discipline based on the deterioration of written communication. Another case of men devoting their lives to studying more and more about less and less - filling volumes and libraries with the subtle linguistic analysis of the grunt.
I think I sit down to the typewriter when it's time to sit down to the typewriter. That isn't to suggest that when I do finally sit down at the typewriter, and write out my plays with a speed that seems to horrify all my detractors and half of my well-wishers, that there's no work involved. It is hard work, and one is doing all the work oneself.
As soon as I sat down to write music, really, with Café Blue. I just can't think about that when I sit down to write. I don't let myself. I actually don't allow myself to look at sales figures. Ever. I get the general impression that I'm not selling like Norah Jones, but I don't really pay too much attention, because I think it would corrupt me.
There are certain topics songwriters stay away from because it's hard to go there. I didn't sit down and go, 'I want to write something about my dad now.'
I'm not the sort of person who does my mathematics writing on paper. I do that at the last stage of the game. I do my mathematics in my head. I sit down for a hard day's work and I write nothing all day. I just think. And I walk up and down because that helps keep me awake, it keeps the blood circulating, and I think and think.
The main thing you worry about is just coming up with songs at all. I don't sit down and write stuff like certain writers do. They think about what they are going to write first and then they write it. I just get what comes in at me. It's like I'm a musician and if I can keep my mitt on, I can catch the balls that come at me.
I don't think about whether it's gonna be a dance record or a ballad or anything when I'm making music. I sit in the studio and I think, 'How am I feeling today?' and I write how I feel. It's really, really simple.
The most striking aspect of linguistic competence is what we may call the 'creativity of language,' that is, the speaker's ability to produce new sentences, sentences that are immediately UNDERSTOOD by other speakers although they bear no physical resemblance to sentences which are 'familiar.
A leader is only able to lead others because he disciplines himself. The person who does not know how to bow to discipline imposed from without, who does not know how to obey, will not make a good leader-nor will the one who has not learned to impose discipline within his own life. Those who scorn scripturally or legally constituted authority, or rebel against it, rarely qualify for high leadership positions.