Success is so fleeting, even if you get a good book deal or your book is a huge success, there's always the fear: What about the next one?

As a writer we are our own instruments; we need to protect our instrument, because no one will protect it if we don't.

When I was writing my first novel, I smoked cigarettes. And when I think about what it was like to smoke, I remember exactly the feeling of sitting in front of my big old computer in that little room where I wrote my first novel.

Let me tell you something about hypochondria: It's a pernicious, undermining little demon. It won't kill you, but it will sap the color from your life so that in the loveliest moments, the moments of grace, you are hit with that whisper in your ear that takes it all away. I'm sick, I'm dying - I just don't know it yet.

Courage is more important than confidence

At some point each day (well, most days) I unroll my mat and practice for an hour. I sit in meditation for a while. This can be five minutes or twenty minutes, but the daily practice - simply showing up for it - is centering.

I think there's something about a writer's disposition, that is, even if unaware, always slightly in a witness state.