You have to read a lot so you know what good writing looks like and you get inspired. You have to write a lot because it's like a sport - you have to practice. And, also, you have to persevere. Don't give up. I got rejected on my first book, like, 14 times, but I just kept going. So believe in yourself and don't give up.
Art is awkward until technique has become an unconscious habit.
You want to know how I started playing trumpet? My father bought me one, and I studied the trumpet. And everybody I heard that I liked, I picked up things from.
Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.
Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like the violin.
Creation is a knack which is empowered by practice, and like almost any skill, it is lost if you don't practice it.
Someone who wants to write should make an effort to write a little something every day. Writing in this sense is the same as athletes who practice a sport every day to keep their skills honed.
Whenever I'm really excited about a song, I want to learn it, and it becomes the first thing I play every time I pick up an instrument.
When I'm at home I practice everyday.
I've always thought that I'm not really a guitar player, but I just practised so much that I developed into a kind of a bit of a musician, but I've often doubted my musical ear. If someone sings me a melody, I have to improvise on that melody, because I can't retain the information they've given me. That's why I still practise today, I suppose, because I still feel inadequate.
I would just listen to records and learn what I could, then just roll it over and over and over.
