A Quote by Maggie Gyllenhaal
I don't think I'm a brilliant writer, but I'm a good writer, and it's just so empowering to get involved.
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I think anyone who's not as good a writer as me is absolutely a hack, and I think anybody who's a slightly better writer than me is brilliant. So of course that makes me a horrible critic when it comes to books, because I can't distance my own experience from what I'm doing.
Bucky Katt: A bad writer is just a good writer with writer's block.
Writer-directors are a little bit more liberal, rather than having just the writer on the set, because I think sometimes the writer becomes too precious with the words. If you're a writer-director, you can see what you're doing and see your work in action, so I think you can correct it right there and still not compromise yourself.
I say "on principle" [regarding 'lesbian writer'] because whenever you get one of your minority labels applied, like "Irish Writer," "Canadian Writer," "Woman Writer," "Lesbian Writer" - any of those categories - you always slightly wince because you're afraid that people will think that means you're only going to write about Canada or Ireland, you know.
Oh, I love labels, as long as they are numerous. I'm an American writer. I'm a Nigerian writer. I'm a Nigerian American writer. I'm an African writer. I'm a Yoruba writer. I'm an African American writer. I'm a writer who's been strongly influenced by European precedents. I'm a writer who feels very close to literary practice in India - which I go to quite often - and to writers over there.
It's not possible to advise a young writer because every young writer is so different. You might say, "Read," but a writer can read too much and be paralyzed. Or, "Don't read, don't think, just write," and the result could be a mountain of drivel. If you're going to be a writer you'll probably take a lot of wrong turns and then one day just end up writing something you have to write, then getting it better and better just because you want it to be better, and even when you get old and think, "There must be something else people do," you won't be able to quit.
I don't think of myself as a producer. In television, it's part of the business - if you progress and become successful as a writer, you're called a writer-producer. What that means is that you have a lot of say in casting and behind-the-scenes stuff. But I'm just a writer.
Of course I'm a black writer... I'm not just a black writer, but categories like black writer, woman writer and Latin American writer aren't marginal anymore. We have to acknowledge that the thing we call "literature" is more pluralistic now, just as society ought to be. The melting pot never worked. We ought to be able to accept on equal terms everybody from the Hasidim to Walter Lippmann, from the Rastafarians to Ralph Bunche.
The characters created cannot just be a mouthpiece for the writer. When you look at a piece of writing, and it's genuine and it doesn't feel like every character is just a mouthpiece for the writer, but that they've been created in such a way that they're expressing an idea that a writer wants to get across, that's when a story succeeds.
I think the press does, too; it's just the few crazies and paparazzi that give them a bad name. Real writers write good things. My daughter's a writer, and she's a quality writer.
You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.
I see the author as the person who has written; the writer, the one involved in the process of writing. And they're not necessarily friends. The writer is the one I want to reinforce; the author would just feed on the reviews - so I'm in favour of starving him.
I never wanted to be a celebrity writer. I wanted to be a good writer. I'm still trying to be a good writer. That's what gets me out of bed in the morning.
A writer is a performer as well. A writer isn't the literary department. That gets tried on but nothing's a script unless a good writer goes away and does his thing alone.
I think the biggest advice I can offer is don't just pick one story and stop, write as much as you can, as many stories as you can. The best thing about being a writer is, a writer's craft is nearly perfect because a writer can go anywhere and do his craft.
Any adjective you put before the noun 'writer' is going to be limiting in some way. Whether it's feminist writer, Jewish writer, Russian writer, or whatever.
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