I remember my dad working with me on breaking down my script and writing out a back story for my character and all that stuff.

My dad's gay experiences really had a very positive influence on me and my straight relationships - how to better accept all the weirdness and ambiguity and ups and downs and paradoxes. I knew from the beginning I was writing about love.

When I started writing I did have some idealised notion of my dad as a writer. But I have less and less of a literary rivalry with him as I've gone on. I certainly don't feel I need his approval although maybe that's because I'm confident that I've got it.

I think the hardest thing about making music now is being a great dad at the same time. There's an insanity that goes with writing - a mad scientist thing that you have to go through - and sacrificing a kid's upbringing to do that is not an option.

I have four shelves covered with journals that I've written. Dad and I are writing songs together. I've probably written 100 songs.

I have written a memoir here and there and that takes its own form of selfishness and courage. However generally speaking I have no interest in writing about my own life or intruding in the privacy of those around me.

It was actually a women's writing group I belonged to in graduate school that gave me the courage to move from poetry to fiction.

The problem is when you are writing something in retrospective it needs a lot of courage not to change or you will forget a certain reality and you will just take in consideration your view today.

Once I had all the facts in I found I didn't have the immoral courage to pull the caper. So I wrote it as a story. As a teenager I didn't have any skills for writing as such so it came out in 1500 words.

The cool thing about writing is that there is really never a typical day. Sometimes I get a rhythm going and head off to work every morning and come home at night. Sometimes I'll write for two days straight and then be utterly blank for the next two.

What I find cool about being a banned author is this: I'm writing books that evoke a reaction books that if dropped in a lake go down not with a whimper but a splash.

The cool thing about writing music writing anything is that once you publish it it's there forever.

The cool thing about being a songwriter or a writer I guess in general you can take on a lot of different things experience a lot of different things just by writing about them.

The cool thing about music is no one can take music away from you writing wise.

I think it would be cool if you were writing a ransom note on your computer if the paper clip popped up and said 'Looks like you're writing a ransom note. Need help? You should use more forceful language you'll get more money.'

But I'm so slow on it because I find it terribly hard writing blind on computers. The computer speaks to me but it's just so slow I'm so terribly slow using it.

When I'm not writing or tweaking my computer I do embroidery. When I'm not plunging into the past tweaking or embroidering I'm reading books about history computers or embroidery.

The digital revolution is far more significant than the invention of writing or even of printing.

I feel like I was writing as I was learning to talk. Writing was always a go to form of communication.

I feel like I was writing as I was learning to talk. Writing was always a go-to form of communication. And I knew I could sing from being in tune with the radio.

By and large the critics and readers gave me an affirmed sense of my identity as a writer. You might know this within yourself but to have it affirmed by others is of utmost importance. Writing is after all a form of communication.

I'm talking to you and it's basically a direct communication whereas if I'm writing a letter to you and you read the letter there are like 12 extra deconstruction and reconstruction steps in the communication.

I thought my life was mapped out. Research living in the forest teaching and writing. But in '86 I went to a conference and realised the chimpanzees were disappearing. I had worldwide recognition and a gift of communication. I had to use them.

In a way song writing can almost be detrimental because suddenly you find an outlet that is a kind of cheating. You don't need to have direct communication. You can say 'I can't describe it to you but I will record it and send it to you.'