If you've gotten an hour of bad work done, it will redeem your whole afternoon. It's scary to do things badly, but it's the secret to life. No one in your family will think it's a good idea for you to start writing. But you have to start now, or you're not going to write at all. Our job is to pay attention.
Writing is sort of like an illness.
I've had it since I was ten. If I could find a way to quit, I would. It's like having homework your whole life. If I apply myself over a year or two, I have a novel. There's an aesthetic that writers maintain, and it's everything from the word choice to the way the words look on the page.