After I read S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, I knew that I wanted to be a young adult author--not just a person who wrote about young adults, but I wanted to be a wunderkind--I was going to publish a book before I turned 20.

Well, that didn't happen. And maybe it's for the best, according to this article in the Village Voice about the pressures of being a young author. Although not to be callous, it's kind of nice that when Ned Vizzini had a nervous breakdown in response to the pressures of writing a new book, the breakdown inspired a new book. So that worked out. (via Bookslut.)