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If you're writing, you're starting in private. It can really be this amazing, private, freeing experience. Forget that it's for other people - that comes in later.

I got into writing music when I was, like, 14 or 15. It was a very private thing for me because I used it as an outlet and emotional release. I kept it very close to myself and didn't tell too many people about it.

I seem to have a natural tendency to want to share my own observations and feelings with other people, and writing seems to be the way I'm best equipped to do that.

I started writing after the death of my grandfather - memories, poems, etc. It was very personal; for years I did not share my writing with anyone.

For me, writing isn't a way of being public or private; it's just a way of being. The process is always full of pain, but I like that. It's a reality, and I just accept it as something not to be avoided.

I write from my life, my experience. I'm selfish that way.

I think everyone assumes that I talk to my parents a lot about writing, but I didn't - they're my parents. We didn't have constant workshops running in my household.

I always wrote. My parents are writers. It just seemed like something people did.

Earlier in my career, I was much more super-sharey. There were moments when I wanted to process things that were happening to me more privately, and I didn't have the space to do it, because once you let people in, they're in, and you don't get to say, 'Oh, I want this for myself.'