I haven't written anything yet that makes me think, This is it! and I don't imagine I ever will. I don't know how it is with you, but when I finish something, even when I'm pleased with the results, it never quite matches the shimmering vision that was out ahead of me as I wrote.

I think I was also afraid of the novel. I write line by line, proceeding at snail's pace, rewriting as I go and paring the excess away. This is against all the best advice for writing long form prose, and I have tried over the years to break myself of the habit, but I can't bear to leave anything ungainly on the page and half the fun for me is that tinkering. So the length of a novel was a daunting prospect.

Along the way, I've worked as a waitress, I've done phone surveys, and worked as a receptionist, and for the last twenty years I've taught. When I was an actor, the key was to find a job that kept your days free to audition.

I always think, OK, this is good, but I'll do it better next time. "And so we beat on, boats against the current. . ." It may not be the recipe for a life of contentment, but that imperfectability is what makes writing such an engaging endeavor, something you can do for the rest of your life and not get bored.

I figured that to be a writer I would need to have been born in the nineteenth century, be British, or have three names. So I turned my sights elsewhere . . . to acting.

As a writer, the ideal job is the one that allows you time and mental space away from it. Teaching seemed to me like the obvious choice - those summers off, you know - but my experience may serve as a cautionary tale.

I loved short stories, and they were all I wanted to write. I love the compression of them and the exactitude needed to get a whole world into such a small space.