I kept writing short stories and sending out my manuscript, and it kept coming back like a bad penny. It was rejected all over town, quite often in very complimentary terms, but rejected nonetheless. Agents would return it saying that they loved it but didn't think they could sell it, or they would ask if I could change the collection into linked stories.

You're unusual. That's better than popular if you have some courage.

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.

Whatever one may say about the perils of workshops, they help writers internalize an awareness of audience.

If you have some other profession that allows you your evenings or weekends, terrific, stick with that. Having a profession other than writing also has the potential side benefit of providing you with material, something to write about.

One of the nice things about moving from acting to writing is that your work can be in the public eye without having to be in the public eye yourself. I guess that's not completely true. If you're lucky - and I have been - there are book tours and lectures. I don't have stage fright, and I enjoy meeting people, so that's easy and enjoyable, but it's not a constant, and it's not celebrity.

That requires quite an imaginative leap because it's hard for me to imagine that my biography would be of much interest to anyone, and because I'm a fairly private person, the notion doesn't appeal to me.