UPDATE - 10/9@12:49PM: For those of you wondering about the fan questions for Neil that Phil Simon collected via his website a couple weeks ago, Phil let me know that he should have a few of those questions along with Neil's responses posted on his website (philsimon.com) within a week or two. The Huffington Post piece was written specifically to focus on Neil's new Far and Near book.

Phil Simon recently interviewed Neil Peart for the Huffington Post to talk about his new book Far and Near: On Days Like These. The interview is now available on the Huffington Post website and in it Neil describes some of the themes contained in his new book and compares writing to music:

... There is no such thing as a natural writer in that sense--without some type of schooling (often journalism, often a lot of failed unpublished words). For myself, I wrote for 20 years before I published and I'm so glad that I had all that practice. I'd go on a trip and write a little diary of it and share it with my friends and all that. I was learning how to do it and I've had good teachers--and the same with music all throughout my career with drumming.

Writing and music have to be learned over time and practiced. The great thing about live performance, at least in music (and that prose writers miss out on), is that you have an audience to judge how well you're doing. That's one of the great things that we've had.

Our background is in performance and I've come to realize in more recent years that our songs were written to play live. It seems like a simple thing but it's not. Our songs were not written to be listened to in headphones or on the radio. They were written to be played. ...

You can read the entire interview online here and order your copy of Neil Peart's Far and Near at this location. The book is a follow-up to Peart's 2011 book Far and Away: A Prize Every Time and is another collection of his NeilPeart.net blog posts since that last book was released.