writer
I workshopped that first full draft with them and got some feedback and then I set it aside for three months and deliberately didn’t look at it or think about it at all and then came back…
Recorded · The Creative Independent · 2023
One question · 6 of 60 answers to it
How much rewriting or revision do you do?
Originally asked
The Paris Review, to novelists and poets, The Art of Fiction
A recurring Art of Fiction craft question, sometimes asked about daily rewriting and sometimes about the number of drafts.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Writer
I worked as an editor until I joined the New Yorker , and so I’m an extremely tough self-editor. I also love being edited. I love a hard edit. It’s a privilege to be edited hard.
Recorded · The Creative Independent · 2022
Co-founder and chief executive of Apple; co-founder of NeXT; chief executive of Pixar
We tried make something much more holistic and simple. When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there.
Recorded · Newsweek · 2006
Filmmaker, Educator, and DJ
I finished it only to get on set and start re-writing everything.
Recorded · MUBI Notebook
American writer
From what I said, it might seem like I pile up all this mental whatever and then BOOM, out pops a poem! It’s really not like that at all.
Recorded · The Brooklyn Rail · 2020
Film director and screenwriter
Very often I do a first [draft] and I give it to friends. I ask them to read it, to give me their suggestions; what they think, what they understand, what works or not for them.
Recorded · Filmmaker Magazine · 2013
Answers marked Recorded were said elsewhere and are quoted with the publication and date they came from. Those people have not joined — nobody here answers on anyone else's behalf.
What do you do when you feel creatively blocked or stuck?
Originally asked
The Creative Independent, to working artists, its interview series
A recurring Creative Independent question whose wording distinguishes a lasting block from a temporary impasse.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Chinese writer
One thing that’s not a hobby but is something I have to do is walk my dog. I’m not the first person to say walking is helpful.
Recorded · The Creative Independent
visual artist and filmmaker
I work on other things. There's usually more than one project brewing. I also write.
Recorded · FEMEXFILMARCHIVE · 2020
Novelist and screenwriter
These days I can usually calm that particular critic down by feeding her a biscuit and giving her a break, although in the early days I sometimes had to take a week off before she’d take a…
Recorded · J.K. Rowling official website · 2019
What song would you like played at your funeral?
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A fixed Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Musician and arranger
At the end of every show, I always blast September by Earth, Wind & Fire at full volume as people leave.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2025
Singer and stage actor
It’s another bloody Prince song, I’m so sorry – Mountains.
Recorded · The Guardian · 2025
English singer and actress
Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien. And my headstone should read: “Game, set and match.”
Recorded · The Guardian · 2016
Which writers or artists most influenced your work?
Originally asked
The Paris Review, to novelists and poets, The Art of Fiction
A durable Art of Fiction question asked through named literary influences and artistic models.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Chemist; winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize
One was Roscoe Gilkey Dickinson. He had got his doctorate in physical chemistry — x-ray crystallography — in 1920. He was the first person to get a Ph.D.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 1990
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 1997-2009; Nobel Peace Prize 2005
One of my mentors, Tom Frank, a professor of law at NYU, he was really instrumental in making me understand that we need to look at the global picture, and we always need to not take…
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 2006
Physicist; Nobel laureate in physics for the invention of the maser and laser
Most scientists do. Of course there are the classical figures. I might talk about Einstein a little bit, for example.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 1991
People, by what they do
- Science and medicine 105
- Arts and letters 1211
- Politics and public life 132
- Business and finance 70
- Technology 47
- Sport 109
Recorded for public figures, from the source their answers were taken from. Browse by era too.
Questions, by subject
- Identity & self 14
- Values & belief 13
- Change of mind 1
- Failure & regret 9
- Craft & work 36
- Money & investment 4
- Taste & recommendation 6
- Relationships 5
- Time & hindsight 8
- Death & what remains 13
- Daily life 9
- Attention & the world 8
Every question the bank can deal, in the order it was written. See all 126.
Some of the people here · A–Z
Find someone →Anna Dorn, Ann Miura-Ko, Anthony Fauci, Bertie Carvel, Boris Fishman, Brian Jungen, Chad Hartigan, Daryl McCormack, David Haye, Diana Athill, Hugh Dennis, Hugh Grant, Hugh Jackman, Jason Isaacs, Jason Manford, Jim Broadbent, Johannes Radebe, John Gallaher, Katherine Parkinson, Kenneth Branagh, Marco Brambilla, Mary Tyler Moore, Michael Morpurgo, Nina Katchadourian, Paul Graham, Paul Kagame, Rita Levi-Montalcini, Roddy Doyle, Rosanna Arquette, Sally Field, Samuel L Jackson, Sharleen Spiteri, Simone Giertz, Sonya Yoncheva, Taja Cheek, Terence Tao, Tom Ford, Tom Stoppard, Viswanathan Anand, William Villalongo
Answers that stay at one address
You are dealt a few questions at a time and answer the ones you want to. What you write gets a permanent address and keeps it. Rewrite it whenever you like and say why — the new version goes up beside the old one rather than over it, so changing your mind reads as thinking rather than as a reversal.
You write before you read. Other members' answers to a question stay shut until you have answered it or passed on it, because reading first changes what you would have said. Passing is free and it is permanent.
- People
- 1,679
- Answers
- 8,158
- Questions
- 126
- First said
- 1910–2026
Most of what is here so far was said somewhere else and recorded with its source — a named person, a publication and a date, on every line. Nothing has been deleted.