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.
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.
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.
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.
