It's hard to decide how to match words to music. It's not like it's twice the work. It's always difficult for me to explain to the composer what I'm looking for. I'm not a professional I lack even basic knowledge about writing music.

There is still the feeling that women's writing is a lesser class of writing that what goes on in the nursery or the bedroom is not as important as what goes on in the battlefield that what women know about is a less category of knowledge.

Faulkner is a writer who has had much to do with my soul but Hemingway is the one who had the most to do with my craft - not simply for his books but for his astounding knowledge of the aspect of craftsmanship in the science of writing.

When we go to the Bible we should keep in mind that the basic principles of the Bible are taught by God but written down by human beings deprived of modern day knowledge. So there is some fallibility in the writings of the Bible. But the basic principles are applicable to my life and I don't find any conflict among them.

If they had said my writing wasn't good enough fair enough that's an opinion. But to say it's too complex is to insult the intelligence of the so-called young.

Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across the border to an unreal land: it is hours and years spent in the factories the streets the cathedrals of the imagination.

Suddenly the whole imagination of writing and editorial and newspaper and all these presumptions about who am I reading this and who else other people may be and all that it's so grimly brutal!

Imagination it turns out is a great deal like reporting in your own head. Here is a paradox of fiction-writing. You are crafting something from nothing which means in one sense that none of it is true. Yet in the writing and perhaps in the reading some of a character's actions or lines are truer than others.

Writing gives me the opportunity to explore ideas play with language solve problems use my imagination and draw on my own childhood.

Writing poetry is the hard manual labor of the imagination.

'Castle' is a guy living in a fantasy world. He's in his imagination writing these stories of murder.

My greatest strength as a child I realize now was my imagination. While every other kid was reading and writing I had seven whole hours a day to practice my imagination. When do you get that space in your life ever?

I regard the writing of humor as a supreme artistic challenge.

I certainly didn't say while writing 'Gossip Girl ' 'Oh this is going to be big!' It was really like 'Oh god everyone's gong to hate these people! They're so bratty!' But I actually think what is so appealing about them is the humor in them.

I am in the Master of Professional Writing program teaching Humor Writing Literary and Dramatic.

But if you read Jane Austen you know that she had a wicked sense of humor. Not only was she funny but her early writing was very dark and had a gothic tone to it.

Some major writers have a huge impact like Ayn Rand who to my mind is a lousy fiction writer because her writing has no compassion and virtually no humor. She has a philosophical and economical message that she is passing off as fiction but it really isn't fiction at all.

My humor tends to be a little more edgy than is appropriate for 'Twilight ' although I got some in there. That was fun! There's just a tonal difference. For me storytelling is storytelling. But I do like writing for grown ups.

At the risk of appearing disingenuous I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor.' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe which is frequently hilarious.

I'm sure there are people who survive tragedy without humor but I've never met any of them. Nor would I be particularly interested in writing about them if I did meet them.

When I look at a lot of older stuff that I've written I think one sign of amateur humor writing is when you see people trying too hard.

Writing a novel is one of those modern rites of passage I think that lead us from an innocent world of contentment drunkenness and good humor to a state of chronic edginess and the perpetual scanning of bank statements.

Writing a song is much like being an author. Yes we all have tools to write (everyone has a brain I hope!) but that doesn't all of a sudden make us best selling authors.

I hope to continue writing. I hope to continue teaching.