A typical day is probably lots of meetings and stuff. But if it’s an idea that we’re developing, what might happen is I might talk to some of the people in the lab, maybe have them come in the office and brainstorm with them, and say, “Well, here’s a problem that we need to solve,” or need to solve better. So just as an example, when I had this idea that we could create better materials, I got about four or five people together with different backgrounds — chemistry, engineering, safety, toxicology — and we started putting chemical structures on the blackboard and say, “Well, this might work,” or “This might not be safe,” and ended up with certain structures that we thought would be good. And then, one of the guys would go out and try to make those structures, and we’d go from there.

I think they’re different. They’re different modalities. When you start an essay, you know you’re going to write an essay. I mean, when I started my essay on “My Night at Maud’s,” it was almost as if I was going to write about myself, not about the film, and I love this mixing of the two.

It’s different every time. The physical or mental acts of composing are always kind of the same. It really involves, for me, turning off the more critical faculties of the brain and reaching a state where things just flow. It takes many days to get into that because normally you’re in this critical mode, this analytical mode where you’re structuring things and putting things in order. To create the material, to create the building blocks, you have to go into another state, which is much more receptive and much more intuitive.

I know what you mean, but there are two kinds of voids, the one that you work with and the one that you bear. I work with and try to generate a void. I pick up the guitar and I let my mind wander until it gets distracted and suddenly it lost its purpose. It’s just wondering between one chord and the other, one subject or the other, or maybe I would just be distracted watching a film and something moves me, or the light in the window and then I let that feeling guide me. I always use this metaphor. It’s like getting into a garden at night and suddenly perceiving a perfume of a tree or a flower. You don’t know exactly where it’s coming from, but you know there’s something there, so you start sniffing around until you find it. You get closer and closer to the source until you identify it. That’s the way I write. What I mean is that suddenly something crosses my mind and I just follow that. I try not to lead at the beginning. I try to follow and then whenever I find that I take, I use reason and I organize. I say, “Wait, I need a second part with the same structure. I need a bridge. I need a chorus. Let’s go. Let’s move to this place. Let’s change this rationally,” but the core has to be subconscious.