So when I was growing up it was very difficult to be kind of a quiet kid who was being bullied, who felt very different from everyone else. So for me books were an escape and writing was an escape. And, you know, a lot of people talked to me about drive and determination and where it came from and it’s not that I ever really thought about it, like, oh, I’m a very determined person, but what compelled me forward growing up was this idea that I had a dream and that one day something bigger could happen for me.
And, you know, at night sometimes I would be curled up in my bed with a blanket and crying and, you know, I couldn’t wait to get out of school, but it seemed like forever in the future, you know, because when you’re young time seems so long and short at the same time.
But I would think this is terrible now but one day something better will happen. And because I had that dream and that really solid belief, you know, I felt like I was going to make it happen. And I just kept going. So you know I would write, work on crafts, sent out short stories, get rejected. But I never let the rejection really get to me, because if I let that get to me then I would have to let go of that dream and let go of that security blanket and I wasn’t willing to do that.
So, you know, one thing that I tell young people when I speak to them is one of the most important things that we can do is create, whether it’s stories or music or singing in your room at the top of your lungs, no matter what you sound like, putting something out in the universe that you’ve created that’s just yours, is so important because there’s so little that we can control, but that’s one thing that we can control, what we create and what we put out there and what we do with it.