In terms of people that I know, my grandmother and my mother are huge influences on my writing life because they are both massively supportive and always have been of my career.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The things I write are combinations of all of the people that have been influences to me.
Without a doubt my mother was an inspiration for my writing. This is true in many ways, but mostly because she is a wonderful storyteller, without even knowing it.
When I try to explain to people the big influences in my life, or at least when I first started, the most important ones were my friends who were also writing songs and were typically four or five years older than me.
I'm influenced a lot by my family. I have a big family.
Both my mother and I have close groups of friends that include other writers, and these friendships are very important to us.
I grew up in a family with two very strong women, my mother and my older sister, and they were big influences on my life.
I do a lot of writing about my family.
My father is my biggest literary influence. Recently, I've been looking through his letters. He was in the National Guard when I was a child, and whenever he left, he would write to me. He wrote letters to me all through college, and we still correspond. His letters, and my mother's, are one of my life's treasures.
I think sometimes I write to impress my influences. Whether they're actually acquaintances of mine, people that I think will hear the record or not, I still write - not to imitate my influences - but to write something that would live up to their standards.
I can't tell you any more than any other writer can tell you why they write, and I don't know what my influences are.