Maria Semple
Maria Semple
Maria Keogh Semple is an American novelist and screenwriter. She is the author of This One Is Mineand Where'd You Go, Bernadette. Her television credits include Beverly Hills, 90210, Mad About You, Saturday Night Live, Arrested Development, Suddenly Susan and Ellen...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth17 June 1964
CountryUnited States of America
given needs novel represent specific time
I think a novel has to be about where you are at a given moment in time. I think it really needs to represent some specific pain you're going through. it's not just a story.
room sideways spent time
Much of the time in the writer's room is spent working on story, and I was always challenging myself to make it more interesting, tighter and more surprising: to come at it sideways in a way that the audience wasn't expecting.
few knew people ted time
When I came back from my first TED, very few people knew what it was. But around the time I was sitting down to write 'Where'd You Go, Bernadette,' in 2010, TED was exploding.
couple drop hard home kid limited race running school serious time
I drop my kid off at school and then race home, and it's a very limited time. I can only do really serious writing for a couple of hours. And then I always go on a walk, I do a one-to-two-hour walk; I don't go running or hard hiking.
amazon car good imposition nature outrageous parking quickly realized shopping store time
I quickly realized that shopping on Amazon had made the idea of parking my car and going into a store feel like an outrageous imposition on my time and good nature.
art courage creating stand takes time
Creating art is painful. It takes time, practice, and the courage to stand alone.
anytime blown cursed men spent time watch writers
I'm consistently blown away by 'Mad Men.' Having spent so much time in the writers' room, I'm cursed in that anytime I watch something, I'm always calculating what the writers are up to.
charitable enriched
I think that everyone in Seattle, their daily existence, is enriched by all the charitable giving that is courtesy of Microsoft.
drivers fury peace seattle suppose
I suppose I could admire all these slow Seattle drivers for their safety-mindedness, consideration for others, and peace of mind. Instead, I'm a fury of annoyance.
became fifteen terms wrote
When I wrote for TV, I was always thinking in terms of character and story. After fifteen years, it became hard-wired in me.
feeling
'Where'd You Go, Bernadette' was surprisingly easy and fun to write because I was feeling such strong emotions.
adapting hands last main mess novel problems work
Writing a novel is so hard, and there are so many problems that the last thing you're thinking about is adapting this mess you have on your hands as a movie. You just want to get it to work as a novel. That's your main focus.
abandon written
If I had written something, and I had written myself into a corner, I didn't abandon it. Because I remembered: There's always more.
characters filled good grew head mind seemed
My father was a screenwriter, and I kind of grew up in that world. I always had a mind for characters and dialogue, and my head was filled with that stuff, so it seemed like a good place to start.