I actually got thrown into my Bar Mitzvah because my teacher, my Cantor, did not tell me that they would all say 'amen' at the end of each, for want of a better word, paragraph. And that threw me completely. I almost went into an Ella Fitzgerald sort of scat.
I rarely tweet unless I'm talking about 'The Bachelor.' I have a love/hate relationship with Instagram, though - it's like a rigid parent. It's much more restrictive with what can be posted, but you can write a full paragraph, post a video - it changes the game a little bit.
I'm influenced by Jennifer Egan, Dave Eggers, David Foster Wallace: writers who are often not content to just stack paragraphs and have to break out of that.
The word 'career' and 'actor' really don't fit in the same paragraph, let alone sentence. There is no career structure for actors.
I had this chronic hyperactivity and an inability to focus, so I was forever being moved to another class, with a much smaller group of children - some of them about 18. If I was asked to read a paragraph, this white wall would go up in my head. Still now, I read very slowly and can rarely work out a tip.
And I think a good writer's gonna make it interesting. From the first paragraph it will all be interesting. Just work at it and work at it and work at it.
Every weekday morning, I picture my first paragraph while I hike with my dog Milo near Mulholland Drive, looking out over the San Fernando Valley. I edit the paragraph, then memorize it, so that when I get back home and sit down at my computer, the blank screen's tyranny lasts only a second or two. A brief reign!
When I was about six or seven, I did this character reenactment performance where I read a monologue from 'Peter Pan.' I got into a complete Peter Pan outfit and did a little paragraph from the script - and I ended up winning an award for it.
I advise, if you're stymied by a passage or paragraph or plot point - whether it's for an assignment from the outside world or one that comes only from within - get up from wherever you're sitting, walk outdoors, and do nothing but look at the sky for five minutes. Just stare at that thing. Then execute a small bow and go back in.
I think my prose reads as if English were my second language. By the time I get to the end of a paragraph, I'm dodging bullets and gasping for breath.
