Screenwriting is always about what people say or do, whereas good writing is about a thought process or an abstract image or an internal monologue, none of which works on screen.
From David Nicholls
I really was a terrible actor. I did it for years in my twenties because it was like being at university again.
I worry sometimes that I'm a bit moralistic; always writing about men who are learning to grow up, not be so self-absorbed, selfish or badly behaved. I wonder if that's dull and liberal and wimpy? I should probably write something that celebrates wickedness.
Most of the books and films I love walk a knife edge between romance and cynicism, and I wanted 'One Day' to stay on that line. I wanted it to be moving, but without being manipulative.
I've only ever been recognised in the street once. In Sweden, strangely.
If there's anything I'm keen to get better at in my writing, then it's the writing of prose as opposed to the writing of dialogue.
I usually write on a computer - unless I get stuck, at which point I switch to write by hand. I think that's common among writers if they get cornered on something.
I read a lot of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I love 'Tender is the Night,' and its atmosphere of doomed romance. He was one of the greatest prose stylists, with a wonderfully clear but lyrical quality.
I identified with Pip from 'Great Expectations,' especially when I was younger; I had the same kind of gaucheness and uncertainty.
I work three days at home, and two days in the British Library or the London Library, just to get out of the house and hide from the children.
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