ExpertDabbler

I was reading John Grisham’s interview online and some quotes stuck into me.

I love to talk to kids and ask them where they’re going to college, and what they want to study. And so often it’s all planned. They know exactly where they’re going, what they’re going to do and where they’re going to be ten years from now. I don’t want to dampen their enthusiasm, but I want to say, “You can’t plan everything.” I never planned to write books, it was not something I ever thought about. I thought I’d be a lawyer for the rest of my life. It’s important to have goals and to work hard for them, but life has a way of presenting opportunities that you don’t really notice at first. Success a lot of times depends on whether you make a change and try something that you hadn’t planned, something new.

You have to live. Nobody wants to hear — the world does not want to hear — a great novel from a 21 year-old. You’ve got to get a real job and get a real career, and you’ve got to go to work. And you’ve got to live and you’ve got to succeed and fail, and suffer, a little bit, or see suffering, heartache and heartbreak and all that before you really have anything to write.

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