I do think I was trying to entertain the reader more than I was trying to purge myself.

There are so many people who are so much better qualified to write about politics than I am.

The fact is that in this day and age I don't think any novelist can assume that a book will get attention.

... it struck me as so hard to believe I was really getting what I wanted; it was always easier to feel the lack of something than the thing itself.

Even more than getting compliments on social media, what I love is when some random stranger says something very funny or insightful about my books, often in 140 characters or less! It's a very casual, low-stakes, non-burdensome way of connecting that I think is fun for both the writer and the reader. And there are a lot of clever people out there who have no connection to publishing.

Perhaps this is how you know you're doing the thing you're intended to: No matter how slow or how slight your progress, you never feel that it's a waste of time.

In life we're most hell-bent on proving things that we're not really sure are true.