We always write way more than we put on a record. We always write a lot-lot.
The only thing that infuriates me is that I have more unwritten stories in me than I can conceivably write in a lifetime.
As to the number of novels I've abandoned... I shudder to think. I have thrown away five completed novels, and that's a gruesome enough figure. But not necessarily a waste of effort.
I have 40 years of unpublished material, the ones they don't pick, and the reason I don't redraw them or use them again is that I like to use my brain every day and come up with new jokes.
I got done writing Ports of Call and suddenly realized I have far too much material for the book.
I think Hollywood has a habit of developing 100 times more than they actually shoot.
The danger is that if you have a bunch of ideas that you forget to use.
After making a movie, maybe you weren't able to shoot many of your ideas, because a movie is only 1 1/2 or two hours long, but TV gives you space to film a lot of things.
Writers know that sometimes things are there in the drawer for decades before they finally come out and you are capable of writing about them.
Boredom is your imagination calling to you.
If something comes up I might write about it, but without an outlet the whole thing winds down.
Probably 95 percent of the things that are written never get on the screen.
I have no new voices - they've all been used.
