A Quote by Maria Semple
I think because I try to keep things as real as I can, or I try to start from a place of reality, I almost don't have the imagination to write a book that's not set where I am.
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I think it's a mistake to think, 'Am I going to write a young adult book, or do I desperately want to write a book for adults?' I think the better ambition is to try to write someone's favorite book, because those categorizations of adult, young adult, become kind of superfluous.
I think that, a lot of times in Hollywood pictures, the reality, the messy reality of women's lives - it's avoided, because I think people are just afraid of it. There's a standard that women are set to, to try to keep everybody comfortable.
I think the most important lesson isn't necessarily to try and write a different book every time, or to try and brand yourself and write one specific kind of book, but to write the kind of books you love to read.
With a book called 'Keeping Score,' I really did want to write a book about the Korean War, because I felt that it is the least understood war in the American cultural imagination. So I set out with the idea that Americans didn't know much about the Korean War and that I was going to try to fix a tiny bit of that.
I've been falsely accused of drawing too much from real life. But I am a petty thief - I take little things. And, I mean, I can hardly write 10 words before I start to make things up. I start to invent, because that's what I want to do. I'm running away to an invented place.
I try consciously to keep myself entertained and challenged to not repeat myself at all. Like, when I start a new book, my goal is to pretty much throw out what I've done and try something completely different that I think initially I cannot do.
I am calm but on the outside, mostly. When I'm on a film set, the stress is so humongous that I'm dying inside - I'm extremely stressed, but I do try, and... well, I don't try. I think it's my natural reaction to not externalize things.
Instead of thinking that you put pieces together that will add up to a whole, I think you have to start with the premise that they're already together and you try to keep from destroying life by segmenting it, overorganizing it and dehumanizing it. You try to keep things together. The educative process must be organic, and not an assortment of unrelated methods and ideas.
I try to write every day. I don't beat myself up about word counts, or how many hours are ticking by on the clock before I'm allowed to go and do something else. I just try to keep a hand in and work every single day, even if there are other demands or I'm on a book tour or have the flu or something, because then I keep my unconscious engaged with the book. Then I'm always a little bit writing, no matter what else I'm doing.
I try to keep a positive intention and use whatever resources I have to benefit others. I try to create businesses that I think are not hurtful. I try to do things that I think are helpful to the environment, to the animals, and to the planet.
I try to keep a positive intention, and use whatever resources I have to benefit others. I try to create businesses that I think are not hurtful. I try to do things that I think are helpful to the environment, to the animals, and to the planet.
I try to dress smooth, I try to keep my face shaved, I try to keep my head cut. I try to do all the things to keep it smooth going!
After a while, you start to realize that you should write a book you would want to read. I try to write a book I would enjoy.
I try to have fun; I try to inject myself into my work and have a good time along the way and not lose sight of who I am, and who my friends are, and all of these things that treating it like a business might hinder. I try to keep that hobby mentality.
If you think you cannot do it, you set yourself up to fail anyway. Maybe it will take one more try to do it, and that is what life is about. If you don't get it right on the first try, you try again. You keep doing it and doing it until you find success!
Memory and the imagination are almost identical. It's the same place in the brain and the same thing is happening. When you think about your own life, there are no memories without place. You are always situated somewhere. I think the imagination - the narrative imagination at least - situates you in a specific space when you start to think of a story. I often use places I know. I put my characters inside rooms and houses that I'm familiar with - sometimes the houses of my parents or grandparents or previous apartments I've lived in.
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