I think it begins as a kind of tension in space.  There’s something out there and it’s waiting for the big bang, and I have to get that into my head.  I have a composer friend in Ireland, and he beautifully said, “I have this scream in my head and I have to get it into the orchestra.  I have to get it into the music.”  But I wouldn’t be quite as dramatic as that.  But I have this tension.  I have this thing that has to be done. And the problem is, you see, once you’ve got the first paragraph down and you’ve got the tone, then the bloody book is written.  All you have to do is fill it in then, which makes it really boring.  I mean I’d like to be like one of those Japanese artists, you know, just go shoop ! and it’s done.  But no, it takes years.

There’s a lot of different ways. Sometimes, I could write directly to a beat, so somebody could send me a beat, and the beat tells me what to say. If I’m recording a demo, I can lay down the framework and start mumbling out a melody. Sometimes, I could just be walking, stumbling drunk from a bar in Berlin, and then, a melody comes to me and I have to make a voice note. It could also be the poem format, where a concept will come to me, I’ll write it down in my notes, and then, I’ll apply the beat. It depends, but once it comes, I just have to record it, because I’ll forget. I was just going through my voice notes and deleting some of them because I have so many.

If so, stop that. Stop thinking, and act.

It depends on the project. I’m working on a novel now, which started by taking a weird interest in something and circling around it. I think in the early stages, I like to do a lot of really rough draft brainstorming, trying to generate a lot of words, even though I know they’re not going to be part of the final draft. I find first drafts challenging and, actually, I prefer the revision stage, because it seems so daunting to create something out of nothing.

I’m a super big fan of list making. I’m like the list queen. And every problem I have ever had has been solved by a list. You write down all the reasons for this, and all the reasons for the other thing, and then there are sub-lists. You can color code them. You can get highlighters. And the answer is there.

What I’ve really learned in my 43 years is that the body does not lie; the body actually tells you what’s right and wrong. If you get a sinking feeling in your stomach or a heavy heart about something, you shouldn’t do it; and if you get a lifting, light feeling in your body, you should.

So much of what I’ve learned, so much of what’s good in my life, was learned because something bad happened, or from making the wrong decision. Through bad decisions I learned how to find the ways to make the right ones.

My husband, Brian Lindstrom, is my biggest supporter. There’s no doing it without him. When I was writing Torch, he believed in me more than I believed in myself. He’s always, always, always been there for me, every time I needed him. He encourages me. He believes in me.

Okay, let me tell you guys. I didn’t know this until last week. There’s a thing called a boot box for your long boots. You put your long boots in them instead of them draping all over the floor of your closet, and then you put a bump on the shelf.

Never date anyone who is mean to you or others. Kindness matters.