A Quote by Elena Tonra

Things like rhyming - it just wasn't falling out of my head that way. So I started to get quite freaked out that I just couldn't write anymore. And then I just kind of went with it, and thought that, "This is the way that my brain's working," in a more direct way, then I should just try it like that for this album. And follow it. Just went with the writer's block, almost - it's a strange thing.
There was things just like not being able to date or - I'm talking like 15, 16 - like just certain things that my friends started to do. Like, they started to get phone calls from girls or like, you know, go and hang out 10, 11 at night, kind of going to the movies. There were just certain things that - it's not that I couldn't do all of those things. It's just that every choice was really deliberate and conscious and thought out and sort of balanced against the religion in a way where I felt - I wasn't necessarily trying to convert at 12 like [my mother] was.
The drinking was getting way out of control. I just didn't recognize myself anymore. I didn't know what I was doing or where I was. I always had to have some drinks with me in my bag. Just waking up shaking and then having Bloody Marys on your own, first thing in the morning-I started to feel really pathetic about it. So I was like, "I can't live like this." It was just this really awful feeling of becoming a totally different person and not being able to control it at all. Then I tried to not drink, but that didn't work. So I figured I should just go to rehab.
A lot of folks just get it in their head that, for instance, like writing memoirs is just easy. You just write down what happened. It doesn't quite work that way.
When I was 16, I took the written driving test, just like everybody else did, and I passed it. Then the first time I was behind the wheel of a car, when I was a kid, it kind of freaked me out. I've always been a very anxious student of anything, and so not being able to process things quickly enough, feeling overwhelmed, I just got freaked out and so I just never tried again.
I felt like if I could get the epiphany out of the way in my drafting process, through my eighth or tenth draft, then that can just be part of how I've assembled the character, and then we can move on and move forward with it. In general, I don't ever want to feel smarter than my characters, because I just feel like that's not a great way to write a story.
I'm really passionate about things I enjoy, and I like to be out there doing things, and learning and challenging myself. So it's just more fun that way, just to get out and try and do and learn and meet people and try to do something new.
Well, the first thing we do is take our brain out and put it in a drawer. Stick it somewhere and let it tantrum until it wears itself out. You may still hear the brain and all the shitty things it is saying to you, but it will be muffled, and just the fact that it is not in your head anymore will make things seem clearer. And then you just do it.
Everything going through my head was like, "Just last month or so, I was just flying into L.A. and things were just getting started with recording my album, and then here it is, wow, boom, here I am in a movie." And then with Leonardo DiCaprio! The whole experience was cool and that moment was so epic for me.
I actually dislike, more than many people, working through literary allusion. I just feel that there's something a bit snobbish or elitist about that. I don't like it as a reader, when I'm reading something. It's not just the elitism of it; it jolts me out of the mode in which I'm reading. I've immersed myself in the world and then when the light goes on I'm supposed to be making some kind of literary comparison to another text. I find I'm pulled out of my kind of fictional world, I'm asked to use my brain in a different kind of way. I don't like that.
The way that I write is I just write a ton of music in the background of my life, and then I just bring it into rehearsal. It's, like, 'Okay, guys. It goes like this. Let's smooth it out.'
When I write a story, I just wanna tell you what's in my head. It can come from real life and then turn into fantasy, stuff just rhyming. And write about what you know. I just like to tell stories that have not been told or [told] from my perspective.
Well we usually just try to do a mix from all the albums so if somebody just has one they don't get bummed out that they don't hear anything from that record, then a couple songs you'll only hear live. Just kind of wing it you know? And sometimes on a tour you'll get with a set-list you like and you kind of just stick with that.
Early on in life I knew that I was a writer, that I just wanted to write, I love books, I love literature and after graduating college, I kind of wandered around in Europe learning languages and writing novels and never led anywhere. And then I got into like journalism in New York as a way to kind of maybe find my way into the field and it wasn't a good fit. It just wasn't right for me.
You buy a house and you get it checked out and you feel like you've kind of made your mark here in some way. And then an act of God just comes up the coast and has the potential to just completely wipe it clean. Weather like that is certainly humbling.
Then what shall I write? I can't just write that this happened then this happened then this happened to boring infinitum. I'll let my journal grow just like the mind does, just like a tree or beast does, just like life does. Why should a book tell a tale in a dull straight line? Words should wander and meander. They should fly like owls and flicker like bats and slip like cats. They should murmur and scream and dance and sing.
If we're going to get this country out of its current energy situation, we can't just conserve our way out; we can't just drill our way out; we can't bomb our way out. We're going to do it the old-fashioned American way, we're going to invent our way out, working together.
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