I was a struggling college student like everyone else. I bicycled to class.
College is the best thing that can ever happen to you," my father used to say, and he was right, for it was there that I discovered drugs, drinking, and smoking.
I started writing in fourth grade and never stopped. I faked my way through high school and nearly was flushed from college - I still can't pay attention - and then had a series of day jobs. But always, continuously, I have written.
So when I told my parents I wanted to go into acting because I was flunking out of my first year of junior college, they were relieved that I had picked something other than joining the army. But I can't imagine how they had high hopes for me.
I'm half-and-half on school. I had fun in grade school, but when I went to college, it was the worst place I've ever been in my entire life.
For me, college wasn't a breeze. I had 8 o'clock classes, I worked from 3 to 11 at the Settlement House. On weekends, if Northwestern Bell needed me, I'd troubleshoot for them, and I had a steady girl. God!
Mountain Dew was my favorite drink through college; it kept me up studying for a lot of tests.
My first novel was called 'Betrayed by F. Scott Fitzgerald,' about the difficulties of graduating from college, the longing and mourning you feel when all your promise seems to float away.
I had a tough career in college.
I would have been miserable in college. I always hated school.
In college, I was failing almost every class I was taking my freshman year. I was having difficulty in managing my time; I was just overwhelmed. Even though I knew I was smart and knew I was good enough, at that point, I doubted all of it because I struggled to handle my sport, classes and social life all at once.
Believe it or not, lots of people change their majors and abandon their dreams just to avoid a couple of math classes in college.
When I barely got into college, the one thing I could do was write, so I became an English major.
At one point in college I was so shy that I'd drop out of a class if asked to speak in front of other people.
I was a theater major, and I remember being in college, and whenever my professor would assign me songs that I hated, I really had a hard time singing them. One time, I even faked sick so I wouldn't have to sing a song.
Everyone tries to talk you out of going to college. The consensus being that people are just gonna forget about you, you know, and that's the way the business works.
My college options were nil.
I started doing plays in New York while I was at Fordham, but I did graduate by the skin of my teeth.
You know, in college, your second year they expect you to have a sophomore slump.
I was never really interested in studies and was hot-headed and rebellious in college, as I was totally confused and insecure but was not coming to terms with it.
I didn't want to go to college, I didn't want to play football anymore, and I kind of just goofed off for about a year and a half.
I had known a couple of people in college who went off the rails, who had significant bouts with mental illness.
There are a lot of parents who've come to me and said about their daughters, 'Oh my God, she's 21, she's totally flailing. Your story gives me hope.' I put my mom through that.
First semester I took classes like econ and that kind of stuff, and I was miserable.
