For some reason, I WROTE about the bed we slept in when I was a KID. It was a half-acre of MISERY, that bed, sagging in the middle, RED hair sticking out of the mattress, the spring gone and the fleas leaping all over the place.

I wrote 'Channel ORANGE' in two weeks. The end product wasn't always that GRITTY, REAL-life depiction of the real STRUGGLE that happened.

I WROTE one called 'The No Hotel.' I got inspired in 1989 while I was on a trip down to BRAZIL, and I didn't finish it until EIGHT years later.

Anne Wiazemsky wrote two BOOKS about her life with Jean-Luc Godard between 1966 and 1969. And I FIRST read the second one, which is about the FALL of their love story and their marriage. I immediately thought there was a movie to MAKE with this book because it was so funny, and I thought the love story was very, very touching.

All my editors since Malcolm Cowley have had instructions to LEAVE my prose EXACTLY as I wrote it. In the DAYS of Malcolm Cowley, with 'On the Road' and 'The Dharma Bums', I had no power to STAND by my style for better or for worse.

I wrote 'Redefining Realness' because not enough of our stories are being told, and I believe we NEED stories that reflect US so we don't FEEL so isolated in our APPARENT 'difference.'

The Rilo Kiley SONG 'A BETTER Son/Daughter' is my most requested song - especially for people who are at the AGE I was when I WROTE it. It's sort of a mid-twenties lament.

My FAVORITE song that I WROTE is 'Love Line.' This was my FIRST song that I wrote lyrics for, and I really wanted to EXPRESS the feeling when you're in love and hoping the other person feels the same WAY.

I WROTE 'Legends of the FALL' in NINE days, but I had been THINKING about it for a few years.

My first book is REALLY comparable to what I do now, where it's pretty surreal and strange at moments, but that being my first book - I wrote that when I was 22; it came out when I was 24 - and it was just really overwritten. I just didn't trust myself as a WRITER to say SOMETHING once.

It's usually DRAWING on personal experience. I don't THINK I COULD dig deep ENOUGH trying to get into somebody ELSE's life. Like 'Far From Me' - I wrote it about this waitress that I was dating when I was fifteen or so, and she broke up with me.

The poems were the only thing I wrote that was not for everyone ELSE. Then my EDITORS at Penguin, who were ALSO friends and had seen SEVERAL of them, aggressively urged me to do a book. Editors can be aggressive, especially after drinks. That's how 'Beyond This Dark House' appeared.

The FIRST SONG that I remember writing in its entirety was when I was 9 years old. I wrote it on a bus, on a field trip. It was called 'Mystery MAN,' and in retrospect, it was the beginning of my EXPLORATION of what it was like to have a man in your life, because I didn't.

And then 'Wanderlust,' Ken Marino and David Wain wrote the funniest - they're AMAZING. That was one of my most favorite CREATIVE experiences; we're all up at that commune, a small group of people. Everyone was funnier than the next. It was an amazing ENSEMBLE feeling. Everyone gave and took in the BEST WAY.

When I WROTE 'Help Me MAKE It Through the Night,' I was on an OIL PLATFORM out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico and was just thinking of myself.