A Quote by Marissa Nadler
I do find it easy to write songs about heartbreak; it comes really naturally to me. It was a little bit more difficult for me to break my mould and tackle different subjects. You know what it's like because you're a writer. You don't want to tread on the same territory. Writing about the personal stuff was a little difficult because I'd worry about who would read it and who would be offended by it.
Quote Topics
Quote Author
Related Quotes
I used to write songs that mimicked other songs that I would hear as a kid, cos I was 12 years old when I was writing those, right. And you hear a radio so all I'd write about was [sings] "hey girl, look at you", you know what I mean. I think that even doing that made it easier for me to write non-personal songs because, from a kid, I never wrote personal songs, they were always like mimicking. And now I'm just trying to understand my writing and where it's coming from.
There are certain writers I can't read when I'm trying to write because their voices are so distinct. Cormac McCarthy, he's the most different writer from anything I've ever written, but there's something about those really spare sentences that is just tough - it would be too much of an influence. Grace Paley is my favorite writer. Her stuff is so voice-driven, when I read her a lot I want to make my writing more voice-y and dialogue-heavy. I love a lot of stuff in translation.
It's so easy to write songs about misery and hard times and sadness. It's much more difficult to write songs about happy and chirpy stuff.
I have a gut reaction to stuff that I read. Either it's a filmmaker that I really want to work with, or it's a story that I really want to be a part of and help serve, or there's a character that I feel I can bring something unique to. That's really what it's about. I would go crazy, if I just relied on the same tricks and did the same thing, all the time. It was just be no fun, at all. I really do need to try something different, every time out, and do something that scares me, a little bit.
I started going to Bible school really early in life. Being raised a Jehovah's Witness, I had to read the Bible over and over. These stories were so horrifying and really difficult to reconcile. For me, Noah wasn't the story of the graham cracker box with the little animals it was horrifying. I would ask the same questions as a child. "Well, what about the little kids? What about the dogs and cats?"
As a youngster when I started writing and stuff, I did actually write more from other people's perspectives. When I hit 18 and something happened to me that hurt me, I discovered that writing the truth is really therapeutic and amazing. Every single one of my songs is about something very personal to me and I could tell anyone what it's about, each song. Like a diary, basically.
I guess songwriting has become a little more difficult for me over the years or maybe I regard it in a different light because I'm a little more critical of the songs that I write, so I take my time with them, which means I don't sit down and overly struggle with a song or overwork it.
I write about what worries me and, hopefully, things worry me a little bit earlier than they do some other people, purely because I am a writer and it is my job to go out there and be worried by things.
I write about heartbreak because I like writing about sad things, but I'm writing happy songs, too!
I have a really, really difficult time with dramaturgy sometimes in America, because I write about other cultures. I write about a culture that is very difficult, it is very foreign to a North American. A lot of people don't know about what's happening.
I wouldn't write about sh*t I don't know. You won't hear me write about politics in Africa and stuff, because I don't know enough about it. And I would never rap about something I can't back up.
The most difficult thing about living as a writer is precisely 'having to write.' Pretending to be a writer is easy. Living freely, reading many books, going on frequent trips, cultivating minor eccentricities... but genuinely being a writer is difficult, because you have to write something that will convince both yourself and readers.
I don't want you to write about what you know, because you don't know anything. I don't want to hear about your boyfriend or your grandma... I'm getting a little tired of 'my life story as fiction'. Please don't tell me about your little life - is there nothing larger? More important?
I'm more interested in talking about what I do. And I don't think people are interested in my personal life. I've never had a Hollywood life. I've always been a worker. But it's true: If you know something about a person outside of the movie that is really repulsive to you, it's hard to shake. So I prefer to do my speaking through the work. I don't want people to know anything about me, because that's not important. I'm more interested in the me that takes shape through these characters. The other stuff is personal and too easy to trivialize out of context.
I started acting when I was about nine. I always wanted to get into acting since I was really little but my parents would never let me because they'd heard all the bad stuff about being in the business as a young actor and stuff like that.
Business is very personal. For me, everything is extremely personal. With actors, the fact that I write helps, because when you say to an actor "Oh I want you to do it a little bit more ...," without saying what you want more of, then the actor doesn't know what to do. But if you can put into words exactly what you want, then the experience of writing is helpful with that.
Related Authors
Bob Marley Quotes
Jamaican
Singer
Britney Spears Quotes
American
Singer
Dolly Parton Quotes
American
Singer
Elvis Presley Quotes
American
Singer
Frank Zappa Quotes
American
Singer
Johnny Cash Quotes
American
Singer
Kurt Cobain Quotes
American
Singer
Lady Gaga Quotes
American
Singer
Marilyn Manson Quotes
American
Singer
Michael Jackson Quotes
American
Singer
Miley Cyrus Quotes
American
Singer
Neil Young Quotes
Canadian
Singer
Paul McCartney Quotes
English
Singer
Steven Morrissey Quotes
English
Singer
Taylor Swift Quotes
American
Singer
Ted Nugent Quotes
American
Singer