I talk in subjects and verbs, and sort of wind around in concentric circles until I get far enough away from the beginning so that I can call it the end, and it ends.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I try to write conversationally; I try to write like people speak and put the emphasis on the right syllable.
I don't begin a novel or a screenplay until I know the ending. And I don't mean only that I have to know what happens. I mean that I have to hear the actual sentences. I have to know what atmosphere the words convey.
When I'm writing, I write all day. Other days, I sit around thinking. Or I run around from one meeting to another, out in the world. It varies, and I like that.
I get involved in the beginning, less in the middle, and very much at the end.
When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again.
When I start getting close to the end of a novel, something registers in the back of my mind for the next novel, so that I usually don't write, or take notes. And I certainly don't begin. I just allow things to percolate for a while.
My writing life is always a bit disorganized. It's hard for me to get going, but sometimes, once I begin, I go like the wind.
I can write all the way through the morning, when my mind is clear, and there are no distractions.
I just simply write as it moves me. I may be writing about a book or a movie or a person, places where I've been or something I've done. Or politics. It's going to what's on my mind at the moment.
I have five, six, seven things I do before those lines are in my brain. I say them like I'm a robot; I sing them. I put a pencil in my mouth, and I say them. I cook. I play with a cushion and say them - so they really are inside of me.