Monica
Monica
R&B recording artist who sang at the 1996 Olympics at age fifteen and sang "Don't Take It Personal" and "Before You Walk Out of My Life."
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionR&B Singer
Date of Birth24 October 1980
CountryUnited States of America
children way agendas
I rarely get a moment to myself, but I love the way that my agenda is dictated by the children, not my work.
morning lying wish
I wish I got a lie-in on Saturday mornings but I never do.
eclectic-style taste nina
I'm very eclectic in my music tastes - anything from Nina Simone to Beethoven to Talvin Singh.
jobs giving interviews
Some writers are more natural public performers than others; personally I find it quite strange giving interviews. But everyone has parts of their job that they like more than others. You can't complain if you get to do what you love doing most of the time, can you?
kids writing play
Kids are naturally inventive and curious and creative, but most adults have had that beaten out of them. Writing is a form of play; you have to get rid of all those internal censors that we adults have, the things that say, 'Don't go there, that's not allowed.
children writing holiday
I started writing 'Brick Lane' when my children were two years and five months old. We were on holiday in the north of England when I was overtaken by a compulsion to start writing.
waiting everyday gone
Sometimes I look back and I am shocked. Everyday of my life I have prepared for success, worked for it, waited for it, and you don't notice how the days pass until nearly a lifetime is finished. Then it hits you--the thing you have been waiting for has already gone by. And it was going in the other direction. It's like I've been waiting on the wrong side of the road for a bus that was already full." p. 265
leaving brain asking
I like Beryl Bainbridge a great deal, and she is a writer who absolutely demands to be read a second, third, and fourth time. I admire her great courage in leaving so much unsaid and asking the reader to really engage her brain.
jobs real book
I guess there's a sort of cycle with writing books. There's all the researching and then the imagining and writing - which is the real job - and then there's always a period when the book comes out and you have to lift your head and venture out.
people want protagonists
People always want to identify a writer with their protagonist.
book thinking excited
I get really excited if I think I'm going to introduce somebody to a writer they haven't found before and I think they'll love. My favorite books to get as gifts are any that the giver is messianic about.
thinking choices culture
If the culture is so all pervasive that you can’t think outside of it, how are you making genuine choices?
getting-older needs certain
The thing about getting older is that you don't need everything to be possible any more, you just need things to be certain.
emotional voting intellectual
Voting is as much an emotional act as it is an intellectual one.