I'm always writing, the past 10 years. A lot has changed, in that it's something I do every day.

People have a tendency to see country life through rose-colored glasses.

If you want to be good at anything, you have to work hard at it. It doesn't just fall from the sky. I work every day at trying to improve my writing, and I really enjoy it. Nothing fascinates me more than putting words together, and seeing how a collection of words can produce quite a profound effect.

It's so interesting to me how songs take on a shape and body of their own and grow.

You go back and look at some of the ancient writings that exist throughout the world about wars and it's the same; the human beings' articulation of events is the same. That really fascinated me.

I don't hold onto anything, because it's a waste of energy to do so, really. There's nothing that I can do about the way people want to write about me. I just try and concentrate on my work and do that as well as I can.

I grab an instrument to make my body a song, but I'm not a player as such, maybe a little more on guitar, but certainly not piano.