Quote

I wrote my first book at 20, but my whole focus from about the age of 12 was to be a writer.

Although I always loved reading and putting words on paper, I never thought about becoming a writer until I was twelve.

I think I became a writer because I didn't know of anything else to do. Maybe some incident from my childhood influenced me.

I had been encouraged a lot by my parents and my sixth grade teacher, James Doyle at Main Street Elementary School. He was an early supporter of my writing ability.

I started writing stories when I was six years old. I was a very shy kid, extremely shy, and I had a fabulous first-grade teacher who told me to write.

I was kind of an outsider growing up, and I preferred reading to being with other kids. When I was about seven, I started to write my own books. I never thought of myself as wanting to be a writer - I just was one.

I was always interested in creative writing growing up. From junior high on, I was writing short stories. I also grew up watching movies. My father would take me to everything. Most weeks, I could open the paper having seen every movie listed.

I really started considering myself a writer when I was about seven or eight years old. I wrote stories from my dreams and kept them all in a notebook that I still have.

When I was about 14 or 15 I decided to become a writer and never for a moment since have I wanted to do anything else.

I was 12. Our, teacher made us write an autobiography and I realised that I wasn't very interesting. I began to make things up, and that's when I thought maybe I was a writer, or at least a fiction writer.