Young Scribes
Q: Did you always want to be a writer?
A: Not a chance!
As I mentioned on my ABOUT page, I never read my first poem, short-story, novel (and so on) outside of an English class until I was twenty-six years old. I didn’t have the patience to sit own long enough to read a bubble gum wrapper, let alone a book.
And that was just reading. But writing? It took me years after that first book before I would stop moving long enough to even know I had something worth saying (the way we all do, really). Before I realized how good it feels transforming thoughts and feelings and experiences into words. How incomparably magical it is to spend some time living from the inside out. That’s what writing is, after all. Those moments when you’re at the page.
As a boy, I was so not ready for that. Back then, I was trying to stuff every feeling I had into all the dark spaces I could find. Writing was the absolute last thing I wanted to do. I mean, I’d have eaten broccoli first. Even asparagus. Just not at the same time.
I loved movies, though. They always felt like adventures I was part of and I could enjoy them with my dad. I still love movies. They’ve always been a way for me to decompress. Besides, I envision everything I write (even the poems) as small movies.
Q: What’s the hardest thing about writing a novel?
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