Helen Dunmore Quotes

My friend Akshay Upadhyay and I used to write poetry and read out to each other.

I get inspired by my friends, and if a friend is a writer, that is even deeper.

Yes, you can feel very alone as a poet and you sometimes think, is it worth it? Is it worth carrying on? But because there were other poets, you became part of a scene. Even though they were very different writers, it made it easier because you were together.

If you write fiction, you're by yourself. There are certain advantages to that in that you don't have to explain anything to anybody. But when you get in with others who share the loneliness of the whole enterprise, you're not lonely anymore.

How do poems grow? They grow out of your life.

Writing with a partner is, in some ways, an easy but odd process. Two people come into a room and look to each other for motivation. One might not be in the right mood at any given moment. And somehow, you begin; somehow, out of your exchange of thoughts, something engages both of you, and the process of collaboration begins.

I love co-writing. That whole process is a challenge in that good writers are pushing you.

How would Jonathan Lethem have obtained such a stellar endorsement for 'The Fortress of Solitude' from Michael Chabon, if not for the years they spent ghostwriting 'MAD' magazine fold-ins together?

I never want to co-write. People never just write a quarter of a book, do they? I don't think you can get your story across.

I like writing with people. I think the times that I've closed myself off to not writing with people, I haven't gotten the best product because I haven't had anyone to go back and forth with and really discuss what's going on in my life, what's going on in their life. It's so important to have that connection.

It's fun when you have a whole team of writers that really like writing for someone; you always end up with some really great lines.

I work very closely with my co-writer, Efthimis Filippou. Ideas either start from him or me, and then the other one develops it, and it's a constant conversation.

Other writers know what you're going through, what you're talking about when you write.

If you write a good line, you write a good line, and the best line wins in television. It doesn't matter if you're the guy who gets the coffee or if you're the showrunner - best line wins. That's the beauty of television collaboration.

When I'm writing the poem, I feel like I have to close my eyes. I don't mean literally, but you invite a kind of blindness, and that's the birth of the poem.

I cannot write in isolation. I write with people around me.

I am writing things on my own, but I really believe co-writing makes you a better writer.

I think writing in a group, even though it can be a challenge - you have to be on your toes all the time - is the way the best comedy gets written. It's very, very collaborative. A lot of comedy writers are definitely introverted nerds.

I think we're always scared, but we have each other to lean on, so we're not being extremely vulnerable in front of the world by ourselves. We have each other.

'Finally' actually started out as a poem. I always wrote poetry, and pretty soon I figured out that if I could write poems, I could write songs.

I really enjoyed the process of 'Women in Clothes,' but there's no way I would have done that again. It felt more like being an editor than a writer, and I longed to write again.

I've been writing the show with Nigel Coan, the director of 'Luxury Comedy', and Tom Meeten. Three's good. With two, you can lock horns a bit. On your own, you're not sure whether what you've made is any good. I don't know how people write novels. I would go mad.

There's an attitude that I have where I bring the art to the table and the writer brings the writing to the table, but neither of us brings the story to the table. The story is something that only happens with the combination of both of us.

Writing in another person's voice is a skill you have to develop when you're working on someone else's show. But if you can maintain your perspective, that's what will make you stand out.

Writing 'Magneto' as part of a team took a little getting used to.