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Writing songs is not something I wanted to share with people for a long time. It was precious to me. I didn't want someone to crush it. I waited until I felt strong enough to take the criticism.

Writing songs is really about writing. It's not about necessarily focusing on one particular style or making it one particular thing.

The fun thing about song writing is that it's just creative. It can be whatever you want it to be. For me, I'm really protective of that. I'm not going to write something because I feel like it fits here or it fits there - I just want to write music that feels good to me, you know?

I think that most people who write about music just want to fill some paper. They're not really interested in getting to the heart of something. Otherwise, they wouldn't write what they write.

I rarely listen to music while writing. If I don't like it, it bothers me, and if I like it, it absorbs me so much I can't write.

I tend to write songs critiquing myself. The best way for me to deal with stuff is to write a song about it... That's not to say all my songs are like that.

Songwriting is like editing. You write down all this stuff - all this bad, stupid stuff - and then you have to get rid of everything except the very best.

I write when I have to; I write when the song is done and I deal with the idea and I just go with it and I'll become what that song is all about until I have finished it. And when you do that, it makes the song more visual, it makes it more personal.

Early in my songwriting career, when I was learning a lot about writing songs, I'd force myself to sit down until I came up with something.