I'm a writer. I've written most of the music we've performed. Most people don't know that because no one cares who writes the music. But, that's who I am. I've written poetry since I was a little girl. Music was an evolution of that.

I think I'm a better writer now than when I started. I certainly know more about producing and working with actors. You take every single bit of it into the next project.

I'm a writer who performs. And I mean, I'm basically a writer. I've been doing it since I was 16. … For me, the balance between the two, the writing -- a year, two years, whatever it takes to do an album, and then you've had enough of writing and thinking and being introspective and all of that kind of stuff, and you want to get out on the road and you want to, you know, get into the physicality of performing.

After "Jammin' In New York", I went from a comedian who wrote his own material to a writer who performed his own material... I became socially conscious, and found I had something to say that wasn't too common.

The type of artist I am now is so much more focused, verses before, things were all over the place. I was chasing “what was hot” or what I thought the “next sound” was in music. But I was disregarding how I truly felt about the music. Now all that just background noise to me, and I’m all about expressing who I am.

Compared to the first album, when I wasn't confident enough to make suggestions, this time around, I was very involved. I worked with the songwriters, telling them what was happening in my life, and what I wanted to sing about. If I thought it needed to be more heavy, more rock, I said so. I feel that this record is so much more me. I can't wait for people to hear it.

You can still listen to my songs from 10 years ago but if you're comparing them to my music today, you'd think they're lousy-at least I think so. There's a good reason why they weren't popular back then. I'm not a particularly gifted singer or songwriter but I like to think I'm hardworking, and listeners can tell the progress I've made over my recent albums. I think my biggest change is my understanding towards music and my taste in it.

So many people think that this album is showing a different side of me, but that's not really what it is. I think it's just more me this time because I got to really do it how I wanted to.

That's very good. And let me add one more thing, that in all my musical releases, I write, compose and arrange my own music, I just get the lyrics from someone else.

(about "Both Sides Now") I wrote it when I was 21. I took a lot of ridicule, too. "What do you know about life? You're only 21." You know, but I really think it took me to — that was done in my 50s — to, you know, it took a mature woman to bring it to life...I grew into that song.

I don’t think my orientation has changed. I am still a contemporary writer. Sometimes, I veer into feminism –the concern of women and children, not really feminism, because I have a brand of feminism I call Beside Feminism.

I love writing, but I feel like you need time to really get in touch with yourself to do that. On [Metamorphosis], I would have liked to have had more time to work with the writers [and] write some more of my own stuff. Hopefully I can do that on my second album.

I write the lyrics first, then the music," he says. "I don't want to try to be someone I'm not, because people easily see through that. So I only write about my own experiences, things I know and enjoy. Like my pets. I can't write about lovey or coupley things.

With lyrics, I have a basic idea, and then I write little phrases that fit with the music and encapsulate a feeling. I start with a theme and then try to adjust it to the music. I like the music to come first. For the book, I would sit down and tell the story, and then go back and edit myself. It’s probably a similar process to what you do with your photography. You shoot it, and then go back to it.