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My dad farmed, my granddad was a farmer. I wanted to be a farmer.

I thought I might like to farm. But I didn't know the economics of it. Teachers basically steered me away from it.

My mother's family raised grains and crops. My father's grew sugarcane and mangos. So I knew more about the basics of farming than of acting.

I worked on a farm for a little bit.

I always wanted to be a farmer. There is a tradition of that in my family.

But as a young kid, I never did, really have an ambition to be a farmer. I never thought, gee, I would like to farm, and I want to raise these crops. I didn't quite know what I wanted to do.

I always wanted to teach.

My mother was an English teacher who decided to become a math teacher, and she used me as a guinea pig at home. My father had been a math teacher and then went to work at a steel mill because, frankly, he could make more money doing that.

My first career was as a coach and a teacher.

When I was writing my first two books I was also freelancing and teaching and doing other odd jobs.