I'm afraid that I'm either going to have to write myself something or direct something if I'm going to get somewhere.
I've been at writing long enough now to know that every three or four books, I have to start a new direction.
People probably have different philosophies about this, but I think that when you're first shaping the play and trying to find a character, the initial actors that develop it end up imprinting on it - you hear their voices; you hear their rhythms. You can't help but to begin to write toward them during the rehearsal process.
I don't wake up every day and just write to write. I only write with purpose.
But I've been at writing long enough now to know that every three or four books I have to start a new direction.
At some point, and maybe it's a function of age, you've had enough of it. You start to slide in other directions. A lot of comedy writers begin to turn the dial. With me, it was a switch. Comedy off. Drama on.
In all the poems I've written I've not really engaged in politics, and when I've found myself moving in that direction I've always stopped myself.
Writers are always sort of threatening to direct, and sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't.
I keep one simple rule that I only move in one direction - I write the book straight through from beginning to end. By following time's arrow, I keep myself sane.
I think the musicians I play with solo do a certain thing that the musicians we play with with the Indigo Girls don't do. It's just a different thing. And it sort of steers my writing in some ways.
What's kind of weird is that when I'm writing I don't know where I'm going to go.
