Sometimes hard work doesn't pay off.
I was in a movie called 'Before & After' with Meryl Streep. I was edited out of the movie, but no one told me. I think I was 18 or 19 years old. I sat across from her and asked her every question about acting. I completely embarrassed myself.
It couldn't be more satisfying to work on something almost anonymously for years, then to have it received affectionately with support.
I'd reached the point at West Brom where I'd play well, score goals, set up goals and nothing would come from it. I'd go home, come back the next day and everything would be the same. No reward, no response.
People who think achieving success is a linear A-to-Z process, a straight shot to the top, simply aren't in touch with reality. There are very few bona fide overnight success stories. It just doesn't work that way. Success appears to happen overnight because we all see stories in newspapers and on TV about previously unknown people who have suddenly become famous. But consider a sequoia tree that has been growing for several hundred years. Just because a television crew one day decides to do a story about that tree doesn't mean it didn't exist before.
We've been slighted in the press for being heartfelt.
I'm the only person in the world that, when he holds down two jobs, gets criticized for it; everyone else gets a pat on the back and say, 'What an entrepreneuring, hardworking person,' but apparently that doesn't apply to me.
Imagine if you put many, many years of your life into something and were passionate about it, and you spent every waking moment putting love into it and trying to make it better, and people didn't understand that. You'd want them to.
People talk about players who should get more attention, but things like that have never bothered me. If I just play my game, walk out the back door without anybody seeing me, I'm fine with that.
I devoted myself to writing for years without representation or a promise of anything. And there were times when I felt quite down about my prospects.
