I grew up in the Great Depression. We didn’t have money for college, although my mother did save enough for a one-year business course. What I mainly gained from that was polishing my typing skills. I could do 100 words a minute with no errors on a mechanical typewriter...

When I left home, I had $30 in my pocket, a used portable typewriter and some musical instruments I had bought in a pawn shop. I always liked the seashore so I took a bus to Corpus Christi, Texas. The day after I arrived, I got a part-time day job and a week-end music job with a band. Then I began furiously writing short stories for the pulp magazines. I submitted them to suspense and western pulp magazines. At first they came back with rejection slips as fast as I sent them out.