I once looked like Norman Mailer in a picture with bad lighting.

I think people face that in any artistic field, this idea of: oh, I could do that, if I had the time.

If it's meant to be, they'll find a way to make it work eventually.

What’s ready? Was Steinback ready? Hemingway? Shakespeare? Dickens? Jane Austen? They just did it, didn’t they?

Lust is temporary, romance can be nice, but love is the most important thing of all. Because without love, lust and romance will always be short-lived.

...there were no guarantees in life, only promises and whispers.

The usual way - through a long series of rejections, revising my manuscripts, and kept trying again and again. Finally I was fortunate enough to find a good agent.