KIM ADDONIZIO: I think the hardest thing when you want to be a writer is keeping going in the face of a lot of doubt-- self-doubt-- and wondering if you can do it. And I think that's the hardest thing. And the biggest thing, if you really fall in love with writing and want to do it, is to find a way to make it a part of your life and to keep doing it and then see what happens with that. It may not lead to being a bestseller, especially if you're a poet. But it can lead you to a writing life that can be very satisfying.
But a lot of people give it up, even people that go to graduate school for it. A lot of people I went to grad school for poetry with-- everybody was a poet then. And years later, not many of them are still writing. And I think that's OK, because we find other things.
But if there's something that's really something you feel you have to do, just don't give up too early on it. Just keep going and try to really find the people that will teach you, find the books that will teach you, find the circumstances of your life that will let you follow the thing that you are trying to do. And something will come back from that.