I had all the normal interests - I played basketball and I headed the school paper. But I also developed very early a great love for music and literature and the theater.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I was a teenager, I began to settle into school because I'd discovered the extracurricular activities that interested me: music and theater.
Like most kids growing up, I had a very wide interest. I was interested in everything. I tried to take advantage of everything, from the sciences to music to writing to literature.
I was always interested in the arts as a child - drawing, painting, and piano - but acting became a favourite. I was a major theatre geek in high school - if I wasn't in the drama room at lunch rehearsing, I'd be in the art room finishing up some type of project.
I think I was a good student, because I jumped over a school. My main interest was basically history and literature. Sports were basically basketball and swimming at a pool. I was so happy.
I made a good living for a teenager. And I had to learn all different kinds of music - jazz, swing, Motown, pop - and that inspired what kind of music I started to write.
I was a really good student. I was nerdy and ambitious. I was involved with every large theater production at my school.
I started in high school and regional theater. Anything that came into town, I wanted to be involved in, because I just wanted to learn.
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 went to college and studied writing, and I got involved in theater. It's always been my passion.
School work and intellectual interests such as music and the arts were not especially important to me while I was growing up, although mathematics, my favorite subject, was fun. Baseball was my first passion: I played sand lot and Little League and rooted for the Brooklyn Dodgers.