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I took a writing class in college, liked it, and my first year out of school I couldn't get a job, so I wrote a play.

I was rather a poor student, too easily distracted - did a lot of gazing out of windows, fine for training to be a writer, but not a great way to achieve in the classroom. The truth is that I was happy to bumble along and do enough to avoid detention, but not much more.

I was never a bright student, potentially never good at dramatics; I was sometimes given one-line roles that I was happy to do so that I could bunk classes. My mother used to cry three times a year, and that is when my report card used to come.

I wasn't a very good student in elementary school and had a hard time with reading and writing.

I went to school to study literature and writing, even though I didn't end up really doing that in the end.

I was never a good student. I had to be dragged into kindergarten. It was hard to sit and listen to somebody talk. I wanted to be out, educated by experience and adventure, and I didn't know how to express that.

I tell students they will know they are getting somewhere when a scene is so painful they can just barely bring themselves to write about it. A writer has to draw blood.

I was the kind of kid who couldn't really stop making up stories during class. I didn't do very well academically because I was always drawing these little doodles in the margins of my notebooks and I wasn't bringing home the best grades.

I was a great student. I was good at everything.

I was frustrated because I couldn't get going, as I was trying to figure out how to make films. I had various jobs, I taught a SAT class, I was a bartender, I had a day job at an office and was making short films.