I had thought for years, probably 30 or 40 years, that it would be a lot of fun to try my hand at a classic English mystery novel... I love that form very much because the reader is so familiar with all of the types of characters that are in there that they already identify with the book.
It fit pretty nicely into my schedule because we'd pretty much finished the bulk of promotion for Mandatory Fun and were just getting geared up for the World Tour so this was a nice time for me to be working on it.
But once I acclimated and really used fame for what it was offering me as a tool to serve my life purpose of inspiring and contributing, then it started to get fun again.
I want a guy I can go hiking with, who wants to do outdoorsy stuff. It's so much fun to be out in nature and who better to do that with than the person you're dating?
This is a comment on fear. Today it's like 'They're going to bomb the New York subway and there's the avian flu and 50 million of us are going to die.' We wanted to make fun of that fear-based culture we've been plunged into. And Halloweens the perfect metaphor for fear.
It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical?
It's never really fun to have to cry in a scene, or anything like that. I just try to put myself in the characters position, and that helps. It's never really fun, but at the same time, if you're having a really bad day, it's a great way to get out all of your frustration by doing a really angry or sad scene. That's always a good release.