A Quote by William S. Burroughs

There is only one thing a writer can write about: what is in front of his senses at the moment of writing... I am a recording instrument... I do not presume to impose "story" "plot" "continuity"... Insofar as I succeed in Direct recording of certain areas of psychic process I may have limited function... I am not an entertainer.
The thing is that I have a really intense, almost compulsive need to record. But it doesn't end there, because what I record is somehow transformed into a creative thing. There is a continuity. Recording is the beginning of a conceptual production. I am somehow collapsing the two - recording and producing - into a single event.
I was recording my audiobook, and it's so weird. You write things, but then to have to say them out loud in front of people feels so different. So when I was recording my audiobook, I was telling an embarrassing story in front of, like, a room full of audio-tech people that I don't know, and I was like 'Oh my God, this is so cringe.'
I am always in self-doubt... every moment of my filmmaking. I am supremely confident when the story is being written and everything is in our head. But the moment we get into the filmmaking, I start doubting myself - from the camera angle to the re-recording to getting the actors to do their shots.
I'd say recording and playing on stage are two completely different things. Being up in front of all people is like jumping off a cliff into icy water. The recording process is a totally different energy.
But I'd say recording and playing on stage are two completely different things. Being up there in front of all those people is like jumping off a cliff into icy water. The recording process is a totally different energy.
Brian Auger is a superb technician on his instrument, but he also plays with feeling that is a rarity. I am looking forward in recording with him in the near future.
I'm always writing my own music, recording my own music, even if I am 9/10 of the time recording stuff for other people. I'm still working on my own creative endeavors.
The process of writing a book is infinitely more important than the book that is completed as a result of the writing, let alone the success or failure that book may have after it is written . . . the book is merely a symbol of the writing. In writing the book, I am living. I am growing. I am tapping myself. I am changing. The process is the product.
When I was first writing, I used to sit at the piano and play songs - I'd write one or two a night. It was my hobby. At some point, it then became a process that was mainly done within the context of the studio, and writing became part of the recording process.
The recording process [ for 'Dirty Work'] took longer than anticipated, because we kept going on tour in between the recording process to make sure that we were still pleasing all the fans across the world.
In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed.
I find that I am much slower in the beginning of a book. I am thinking of the plot, of the characters and who they are, and where they are going. I often throw out a lot of the writing I start with, because the characters and plot improve as I write. Or perhaps I should say it is my hope they will improve as I write.
The consciousness-expanding drugs - the hallucinogens, such as cannabis, mescaline, LSD, Psylocybin - I think are useful to a writer up to a certain point. That is, they open psychic areas that would not otherwise be available to the writer. But I feel that once these areas have been opened and the writer has reached them, he is able to get back there in the future without the drug.
Our writing, especially during 'Boxer' - the recording process was the writing process, which is not the way I would advise anyone else to do it.
When you work this intensely on something, the recording process becomes a bit like cabin fever. I shut everything out and, for a while, I totally lost perspective. To an outsider, I imagine the whole recording process sounds like torture.
I have been privileged to write across multiple facets of my life: to write romance novels, to write memoir, to write about leadership, and to write tax and social policy articles. The act of writing is integral to who I am. I'm a writer, a politician, a tax attorney, a civic leader, and an entrepreneur. I am proud of what I've accomplished.
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