A Quote by T.C. Boyle

One of the problems I have with many writers is their stories are all somewhat similar. They might be very good, but they're always on the same turf. I don't have those limitations.
Fundamentally, the way I work is exactly the same whether I'm making 'Whale Rider' or 'Mulan'. And those two stories are somewhat similar. They have interesting parallels, and it felt like I'd really come full circle, back to a story of leadership.
I think [guys and girls] are often very similar, emotionally. Guys put on the façade that everything is cool, but deep down, I think they have some of the similar problems with image, popularity and fitting in - finding a girl and being loved and all those types of problems.
South Africa and Brazil are very similar. We have the same social problems, same issues and same growing economies.
Writers always have confidence issues - it comes with the territory. We never know where we fit in, or what the actual value of our work might be. So we hit lulls, or slogs. Throw in the idea that many creative people are somewhat manic-depressive, and it can get pretty dark at times.
I've always loved short stories. Even before I was a writer, I was reading short stories - there were certain writers where I just felt like they could do in a short story what so many writers needed a whole novel to do, and that was really inspiring to me.
The good stories, of course, write themselves. And somebody wants to know who are the really good writers, and how many of them there are. There aren't any. Most of the writers are likeable frauds. Some are unlikable frauds.
I got elected on a commitment to Canadians that I was going to make growth work for everyone. I was going to focus on the middle class and those working hard to join it. I was going to make sure that the people who felt that the growth in the economy had left them behind would be included. That's similar to the promise that got Trump elected. Now, our approaches to the same problems are somewhat different. But in my conversations with him, we've very much been able to agree that we want to help the citizens of our countries in tangible ways.
I've heard a lot of great success stories from writers - how so many of them struggled to get where they are and how persistence pays off. I learned that some writers are good at doing readings and some are not so good at it.
It's a tough time for screenwriters right now, because fewer movies are getting made. I'm enjoying television so much. It offers opportunities for writers to be in a writers' room and work their way up. It's somewhat easier because there's more of a community. There are so many screenwriters with incredible stories to tell, so I hope there will be some kind of shift in the business where very few types of movies are now made by the studios. There needs to be different budgets for different audiences; not everything having to be a huge opening weekend.
Just like on Guitar Hero, there are things that are similar and things that are not similar at all. When I first played DJ Hero, I wasn't very good. The control surface is similar in some ways to a turntable, but in other ways not at all the same.
I've always loved short stories. Even before I was a writer I was reading short stories - there were certain writers where I just felt like they could do in a short story what so many writers needed a whole novel to do, and that was really inspiring to me. Alice Munro, I felt that way about from an early time. Grace Paley.
Real writers-that is, capital W Writers-rarely make much money. Their biggest reward is the occasional reader's response.... Commentators-in-print voicing big fat opinions-you might call us small w writers-get considerably more feedback than Writers. The letters I personally find most flattering are not the very rare ones that speak well of my editorials, but the occasional reader who wants to know who writes them. I always happily assume the letter-writers is implying that the editorials are so good that I couldn't have written them myself.
There are so many stories to be told, by so many good writers.
The same issue is happening on a show like Everybody Loves Raymond now, which is in its eighth year and struggling to come up with good stories. It'll be interesting to see how they do. The bottom line is, it starts with the writers and ends with the writers.
I'm mean and turf and I'm mean and turf and I'm mean and turf and I'm mean and turf, And me an' my friends can walk towards you with our hats on backwards in a menacing way, Yo!
You can use your means in a good and bad way. In German-speaking art, we had such a bad experience with the Third Reich, when stories and images were used to tell lies. After the war, literature was careful not to do the same, which is why writers began to reflect on the stories they told and to make readers part of their texts. I do the same.
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