A Quote by Joan Didion

Once in a while, when I first started to write pieces, I would try to write to a reader other than myself. I always failed. I would freeze up. — © Joan Didion
Once in a while, when I first started to write pieces, I would try to write to a reader other than myself. I always failed. I would freeze up.
I don't write because I think I have anything particularly interesting to say. I write because I love writing more than any other work I've done. I do think about entertaining the reader to the extent that I try always to write a book that I myself would want to read, but I don't think it's up for me to decide if what I've written is interesting to others. That is entirely up to others.
Once in a while I catch myself wondering whether I would have found the courage to write if I had not started to write when I was too young to know what was good for me.
Sometimes my boyfriend would write the lyrics and I would write the melody, and other times I would start from scratch. Or sometimes I would take a local poem and put that to music...I always sang standards because the songs I wrote for myself weren't as easy to sing.
I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool - and I'm not any of those - to say that I don't write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues.
Way back in the day, when I first started and had delusions of adequacy as a cartoonist, I would listen to music. When I switched to a career as a writer, I would try to listen to music, but if the songs had lyrics they would get in the way of the words I was trying to write. So I switched to listening to purely instrumental pieces.
Yes, I, well, when I write, as often as I can, I try to write as if I'm talking to people. It doesn't always work, and one shouldn't always try it, but I try and write as if I am talking, and trying to engage the reader in conversation.
I would go with my husband to the tailors where he gets his shirts made, and I would watch the bespoke process. I would ask them, "Would you be able to make that for me?" And they would always say, "Well, yes, but no." They were very French about it. I decided I would just do it for myself. And I started doing that. Then other people would notice, and want it. So I started doing things for friends, little pieces, and my own line grew that way.
Every writer writes in different ways, and so some write the music first, while others write the lyrics first, and some write while they are doing other things, and it is just nice to see how other writers are writing.
I think when we were starting out, it was more about imitating our songwriting heroes. We would try to write songs like Neil Finn, or we would try to write songs like Ray Davies, or we would try to write songs like Glenn Tilbrook.
I wrote as a teenager, and once I started acting, you know, you're learning lines, you're doing other people's words, it takes up a lot of time. Especially if you're dedicated to what you're doing, you're trying to do a decent job at it. But I would have said to myself, "Write more, please."
I would like to write a novel, or at least try to write one, although my motives are not entirely pure. For one thing, I get asked about writing novels so much that I feel guilty about never having written one. And although I have no strong desire to write a novel, I would hate not to try. That would just be silly. On the other hand, I hate the idea of slogging through something that turns out to be not good.
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 would get up at 3 in the morning and write. Or sometimes I would write at midnight. Or I would write when my child napped. It wasn't a burden. I was so enthused about what I was doing at the time that I really didn't mind.
I would write down the lyrics to 'C.R.E.A.M.' in Korean - not translating it, but phonetically writing out each word. I didn't know what they were saying, so I would just write everything down as I heard it. I would recite it and imitate it like that. That's how I started to write my own raps.
I try to write cinematically. Let me define what I mean by that. First of all, I try to write in a visual way so that the reader can watch a movie in their head. And it keeps moving. I try to structure the stories like a screenplay may be structured.
Right now, it hasn't affected my music other than the fact that I don't have time to write any of it. That's no different from when I first started and I lived at home. I would play the guitar in the afternoon and then my mom or my dad would come home and I'd have to quit.
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