I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien to my life.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I continued studying by myself in the field of jazz with my own technique of improvisation, walking bass lines, rhythms, all kinds of stuff, which I created for myself.
Since my father is a musician as well, he taught me growing up that if you can play jazz, you can learn all instruments and write on them. He wanted me to be a songwriter that can do anything in any genre. I'm all about doing every genre.
I tried almost every genre. I decided at 14 I wanted to be a writer. I think I had to wait until they invented word processors to get serious about it, but I really tried every genre, and fantasy was the one that gave me the scope to do the most... you could play with worlds more.
When I first started to get into writing, it was via music. I'd generate ideas for songs that would turn into stories, then they'd turn into novels. I was biased toward music.
I think I had actually served my apprenticeship as a writer of fiction by writing all those songs. I had already been through phases of autobiographical or experimental stuff.
I never studied writing, but I'd always been a reader and had a secret fantasy about being a writer.
I read a lot of autobiographical stories, and I write plays and prose. And I play piano and cello. A lot of my downtime is devoted to that.
I had a vision of myself as a novelist because that was where I could be serious. I couldn't with music.
I've always wanted to make music like people write plays, so I was inspired by writers as much as musicians.
I made a good living for a teenager. And I had to learn all different kinds of music - jazz, swing, Motown, pop - and that inspired what kind of music I started to write.