When I started Amos Content Group in 2009, I made a simple bet: our handmade, contextual, and authentic content will stand out in an increasingly information-saturated world.
When I started to write, I realised that you need a bit of both: the overall context as well as the individual's experience.
I started my own martial arts school at 16. And by the time I was 21, I had three different schools.
I started trading around 1979, fresh out of college. In the early '90s, I started guesting for major news media.
I've lifted weights ever since I was a teenager, but I started going more towards the Olympic weightlifting style, which is clean and jerk.
Every year, my family and I would go visit my mom's family in Texas. We would drive from Chicago to Texas, and once we started to get towards San Antonio, everyone looked like me! It was such a great feeling. Everyone had the same brown skin that I did.
As I started to think about how I can claim feminism while also acknowledging my humanity and my imperfections, 'bad feminism' simply seemed like the best answer.
When I was first starting out was also when I first started really paying attention to the Oscars and stuff like that. And I remember thinking, 'Wow, everything is great for women in Hollywood, because Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Jessica Lange, Sally Field - they're all doing incredible work.'
I've started working on a new album, I'm writing a new book... there are a lot of good things on the horizon.
I was an actor for a little bit. That's when I started to understand fiction - and that one of the great things about fiction is that you're dependent on the characters as much as they're dependent on you.
'Phantom of the Opera' started in my little 100-seater converted church in Britain with a stage where we did what we did. But it was the score itself was what made it.
It wasn't until 'Thor' that I started lifting weights. It was all pretty new to me.
I went to a soccer high school, and it was really different to being on 'Idol.' So I decided to quit school, and I put all my energy into music, and things started to happen.
My mother was 13 when I was born. My childhood was pretty frantic, to say the least. My mother left when I was about 5, and Daddy started me singing in clubs. Then I started singing on the radio in Oklahoma City when I was 7.
You know, most people called rap stupid when it started, and it was one of the most innovative music forms of its time.
I didn't have a regular school experience and wanted a more abstract way of learning. I started exploring in lots of different creative ways. It gave me the opportunity to travel and play music, so it was good for me.
I've been writing since I was 10 or 11. I started with poetry because that was the easiest thing. It just kind of came naturally. I think at that time West Coast hip hop was huge; all these kids around me were like, 'I want to be a rapper.' But I'm a white girl, not going to be a rapper.
My mom started working at the California Shakespeare Theater in Oakland when I was two years old, so I've always grown up around theater.
I started out writing much more science fictiony stuff and writing about science fiction.
All I ever wanted to do was get a great job on a TV show. When I read 'Modern Family' and started looking at what was available - I obviously couldn't play Gloria; I couldn't play Claire. When I saw the character of Cam, I was like, 'I have to have a shot at this,' because I thought it was a character that would be really fun to play.
There was never any career plan. When 'Red Dwarf' started I thought we were doing a curious little sitcom on BBC2, I didn't think I was becoming an actor. I didn't see that 21 years later I'd still be talking about it, let alone filming a new one. For me everything's always been an accident.
When I did make the decision to focus on acting, I think my mother was just relieved for me that I had finally started to focus.
It ended up being a very good thing, because they finally started writing for the character, and I realized that you have to go to work with a purpose. I learned from the experience and then moved on.
I started out as a dancer as a kid; I've been dancing since I was 4. So performing was always part of what I was.
When I started modeling, I was told to tan, but I always protected my face.
The first time I was on 'Johnny Carson,' I remember being so scared, but the minute he started talking to me, I felt a little more comfortable because I just knew he was going to take care of me. Hopefully, I have learned something from watching him for so many years that I can offer that to a guest.
I try to live my life like my father lives his. He always takes care of everyone else first. He won't even start eating until he's sure everyone else in the family has started eating. Another thing: My dad never judges me by whether I win or lose.
You'd never play Hamlet if you started worrying about who's played it before you.
As I grew up, I started practising gymnastics. I love dancing as well. So that keeps me fit.
I was broadcast-struck from an early age; I had saved up for a tape recorder and started making programmes.
I started out in theater and then I got a job on a soap in New York.
I have been writing songs and poems since I was a little girl. I started writing short scripts, which evolved into the idea for a book.
In black neighborhoods, everybody appreciated comedy about real life. In the white community, fantasy was funnier. I started looking for the jokes that were equally hilarious across the board, for totally different reasons.
My mother was largely a housewife until she and my father were divorced. No one in the family read for pleasure - it was a very unintellectual household - but my mother did read to us when we were little, and that's how I started to read.
I think most fiction writers naturally start by writing short stories, but some of us don't. When I first started writing, I just started writing a novel. It's a hard way to learn to write. I don't recommend it to my students, but it just happens that way for some of us.
When the Industrial Revolution started, the amount of carbon sitting underneath Britain in the form of coal was as big as the amount of carbon sitting under Saudi Arabia in the form of oil, and this carbon powered the Industrial Revolution, it put the 'Great' in Great Britain, and led to Britain's temporary world domination.
