A Quote by Kate Thompson
I found it really hard for a couple of years to do any writing because all I wanted to do was play the fiddle. From the minute I took it up, I just couldn't put it down.
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I went to so many record labels - name any one - and they all turned me down. For some reason I just got the thumbs down for years and years. It sounds like I'm making that up, but it's true. I'm too serious about music and my creations to take just any kind of deal. There were a couple of companies that wanted to put me with a producer, and I said, "Well, I just produced my last album," and I wasn't about to go backwards.
My grandfather played a mandolin, so I got my hands on that. Then on down to a banjo, and I found I couldn't play any kind of soft or mournful music with that so I took up the fiddle in my late 20s or early 30s - and that was far too late. But it keeps me off the streets. It has been a love of mine since I was 17 maybe.
When I was in grade school and we had to write papers about what we wanted to be when we grew up, I wanted to be a social worker or a missionary or a teacher... Then I got involved with tennis, and everything was just me, me, me. I was totally selfish and thought about myself and nobody else, because if you let up for one minute, someone was going to come along and beat you. I really wouldn't let anyone or any slice of happiness enter... I didn't like the characteristics that it took to become a champion.
I didn't mind writing incoherently, up until about 1980, occasionally. But after that, I decided, might as well be articulate. And I found, though, that writing poetry affected my prose to the point where I never again wrote in one draft, and my prose just took longer and longer and longer. It took longer and longer to come up with an acceptable text. And that's probably one of the reasons that my output has slowed down.
I wanted to play my original music, but it was really hard because a lot of the people who would come out to the shows found out about me through 'The Voice' and wanted to hear covers.
I was just writing songs in my spare time, and recording because it's fun to do, and Sub Pop called me and said they wanted to put some stuff out. I had to weigh whether I wanted to put the time into it because it's a commitment. But, in the end, it seemed too good to pass up.
I wrote Her First American and I always say it took me eighteen years. It took me that long was because after about five years I stopped and wrote Lucinella. I got stuck; it was too hard to write. Lucinella felt like a lark. I wanted to write about the literary circle because it amused me, and I allowed myself to do what I wanted to do. It's just one of the things I'm allowed to do if I feel like it.
Without changing my style and who I am, they [Trent Willmon and Dan Couch and Dale Oliver ] know how to draw those things out of me. It was a really cool experience on this record, because I tried really hard on the writing to make sure that I wasn't just writing it just like I wanted to.
I've been offered quite a few network shows, over the past couple of years, and always turned them down because I never wanted the commitment. The way that it works in America, you do a pilot and then you wait, and I just thought that wasn't really what I was interested in doing, in that moment.
Those who refuse to play second fiddle may wind up playing no fiddle at all.
During those times like in my early years as a writer I could actually write a song in ten minutes because all of a sudden a song is writing itself, I'm just putting down words. It just seem each line that you put down flows with the other ones. It's like writing a love letter you don't think about it, it's something from the heart.
I was never on a mission to be an NFL quarterback. I wanted to be a good high school player, and I worked hard at that. That made me good enough to play in college and then I wanted to be a good college quarterback. During college I played well enough to make it into the NFL. I never took it for granted and really wanted to play hard at each level and I have always had a lot of fun doing what I wanted to do.
I feel really humbled and really grateful to have the opportunities that I've had over the past couple of years to work with some amazing people. I think, at this point, I just want to put my head down and grind and do honest work.
About a year after I moved to Los Angeles, I decided I wanted to be a joke writer for a late night talk show. So I met with a late night joke writer and he told me that I should start by doing stand-up comedy, because that would really hone my sense of humor and joke writing ability. Eventually I took a stand-up class and a few months later I had a seven-minute act.
We were developing an innovative Personal Information Manager called Chandler but a couple years ago I took off from that to do a project writing down my memoirs essentially, reminiscing about the development of the Macintosh.
Longevity is a huge factor in becoming separate from the mass of people that are just starting, or don't have any friends in the same realm, or don't really have the foundation. So it's good and bad, it's easy and it's hard. It's really what you make of it. Because if it's truly something that you really enjoy and obsess over, then waiting 10 years or waiting 30 years shouldn't be that big of a deal for you. As you get older and as you work harder, you see further down the road.
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