I kept writing not because I felt I was so good, but because I felt they were so bad, including Shakespeare, all those. The stilted formalism, like chewing cardboard.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
In high school, my English teacher Celeste McMenamin introduced me to the great novels and Shakespeare and taught me how to write. Essays, poetry, critical analysis. Writing is a skill that was painful then but a love of mine now.
Frankly, I have always dreaded writing - there always seemed to be pain involved, unpleasant self-examination and a lot of fear.
Shakespeare shows you what it is possible to do in English as a writer - but also shows you that you might as well give up. As it's all been done before and hundreds of years ago. So I have had that long-standing relationship of oppression and inspiration.
I have never written a play, a story, a poem, or my one film - anything - unless something was troubling me enough, wrecking me, in fact, to drive me back into the absurdity of writing. I do not enjoy writing.
Writing, for me, was a feat of self-preservation. If I did not do it, I would die. So I did it. Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life.
It was easier to do Shakespeare than a lot of modern movie scripts that are so poorly written.
I was able to work out all sorts of attitudes to style and event and character, all of which affected the way I came to think about my own writing. I believe that all good writers are original.
Anything well written with good language and clarity and honesty is worth doing. It comes out of the same tradition as Shakespeare.
I had a very bad first experience of Shakespeare at school, and, now I'm determined to put that wrong right and just make Shakespeare as vivid and live as possible.
My writing improved the more I wrote - and the more I read good writing, from Shakespeare on down.