It's ludicrous to think people work for you: 'a film by...' doesn't exist. Directed by, maybe, but it's a film from a collective, a group of people whom you consult and seek your counsel and advice and vice versa, too.
Our rule was that we [with Kate DiCamillo] would write everything together, literally every word.
It was a unique experience in several ways, because I don't think Sam [Fuller] had ever collaborated with another writer over his whole career.
Although Bill Finger literally typed the scripts in the early days, he wrote the scripts from ideas that we mutually collaborated on. Many of the unique concepts and story twists also came from my own fertile imagination.
When Sonic Youth writes music, we write everything in a very communal way. It doesn't matter who brought something in initially; it all gets transformed by the band.
I never can understand how two men can write a book together; to me that's like three people getting together to have a baby.
Sonic Youth has a very democratic process for the most part. It almost doesn't matter who brings in an initial idea; everything gets worked over by the band and kind of co-written by everyone in the end because everyone's ideas get contributed to it.
Writing on my own versus co-writing kind of is the exact same thing because we don't sit in the same room when we write. We're always writing alone anyway.
I, alone, could never have produced this book. I say this mainly in case there are lawsuits.
I never co-write. I've tried it before, and I just can't do it.
In most multiple composer situations, you find it because someone got nervous about the music and insisted that somebody else come in and help.
'Heartless' is something Ann and I wrote together.
Paul (McCartney) and I made a deal when we were 15. There was never a legal deal between us, just a deal we made when we decided to write together that we put both our names on it, no matter what.
Film is a team thing. There is no auteur.
When you have four people writing lyrics instead of one person, the lyrics are going to be a little more broad.
Most people can't tell now who wrote what. I like that blurring of identities within the band. because it becomes a unified thing that can't be related to other forms of historical poetry.
I don't really write all that well with others.
A lot of times, people assume that I write all the songs: that I arrange them and I stick Kevin up there as kind of a puppet or something. It's absolutely not that way. In fact, he writes probably 60 percent of the songs, and I write probably 40 percent.
We really try to make sure that the band writes the songs, not just one person.
A novel and its writer are inseparable: you are your books. A play's not like that at all. 'Abandonment's not mine - it's everyone's. I wanted it to be a co-operative thing because I was tired of that anal control that I have over novels.
I tried to write with someone else once before, but it was not successful.
Collaboration on a book is the ultimate unnatural act.
For Cave Carson, I have a co-writer, so that takes off a lot of the pressure.
Well, unlike a lot of authors, I will be the one to cop to having a ghostwriter. I've always written with someone else.
In some instances, I would say the writer does deserve equal billing with the director. In other instances the director - especially if he wrote part of the script himself - is clearly more the author of the movie.
