A Quote by Kimberly Willis Holt
Although I always loved reading and putting words on paper, I never thought about becoming a writer until I was twelve.
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As a kid, I dreamt of becoming a writer. My most exciting pastime was reading novels; in fact, I would read anything I could find. I never thought I would pursue mathematics until my last year in high school. I grew up in a family with three siblings. My parents were always very supportive and encouraging. It was important for them that we have meaningful and satisfying professions, but they didn't care as much about success and achievement.
Writing is finally about one thing: going into a room alone and doing it. Putting words on paper that have never been there in quite that way before. And although you are physically by yourself, the haunting Demon never leaves you, that Demon being the knowledge of your own terrible limitations, your hopeless inadequacy, the impossibility of ever getting it right. No matter how diamond-bright your ideas are dancing in your brain, on paper they are earthbound.
Reading usually precedes writing. And the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading. Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer.
When I was growing up, I dreamed about becoming a cowgirl, a detective, a spy, a great actress, or a ballerina. Not a dentist, like my father, or a homemaker, like my mother - and certainly not a writer, although I always loved to read.
I'd always loved poetry and I'd always loved writing music and composing music, but I hadn't thought of putting the two together until around that time.
If you're well-known, you're at the risk of becoming your own character. When you're alone, as a writer, you have to be unknown, putting it all on the paper.
My mind is constantly creating and searching, but I can't make myself put the right words on paper until I'm ready. Once I'm ready, I'm a focused, disciplined writer who will put in twelve hours a day at the computer, but I also spend a lot of time away from the computer getting to that point.
I remember reading Dr. Seuss books, and he's rhyming so many words together and I just loved the way it sounded. It became a challenge for me, to put words together that nobody would ever think about putting together.
I always thought everybody made up stories in their heads - never thought about actually writing them down on paper until I was snowed in with the kids in the blizzard of '79 - 3 feet of snow. I live in a rural area and was stuck. No morning kindergarten - it was a nightmare.
I think if you have the compulsion to write, you're not going to feel whole until you start putting words on paper.
I started dealing with my emotional pain by writing. I always had been a writer, but just not songs. Saying things on paper that I would never, ever say, and saying things to myself, admitting things to myself, about myself and my personality, just putting it on paper, is how I deal with emotional pain.
I do find that people are incredibly naive about what it is to be a writer. Like you would pay an incredible amount of money for an MFA program and still not have the slightest idea of how one goes about becoming a writer. So, I'm always flabbergasted when people say, "Oh, I was invited to do a reading, but I'm not going to read because I don't have a book.".
Writing is finally about one thing: going into a room alone and doing it, putting words on paper that have never been there in quite that way before.
Becoming a writer can kind of spoil your reading because you kind of read on tracks. You're reading as someone who wants to enjoy the book but also, as a writer, noticing the techniques that the writer uses and especially the ones that make you want to turn the page to see what happened.
I didn't know anybody who was a filmmaker - there was no film industry where I grew up. I never knew what a director really did until I was in high school and I started reading up about it. I've always loved films, and I always felt like a storyteller.
I always loved reading. I always was the spelling bee champion. I always loved words. I always wanted to know what they meant, why you used them, who first said them. I was always interested in that.
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