If you really believe in what you're doing, work hard, take nothing personally and if something blocks one route, find another. Never give up.
I majored in journalism at Arizona State University, where I began writing the columns I write now, but I cannot, in good conscience, refer to myself as a writer. I'm a columnist, maybe a journalist, I guess I'm an author, but writer... no. That's not up to me to call myself, that's rather lofty. It's for the reader to decide.
I've never really considered doing stand up, but I have done readings/spoken word things fairly often in which I'll just tell a bunch of stories and run off at the mouth. I'm a big tangent person.
I've had to write a column an hour after I've come back from a funeral. A deadline is a deadline, I mean, that was just what my job was.
I'm nicer on tax day than I am when I'm on deadline.
