Unless you're Stephen King or Joyce Carol Oates, no one's going to recognize you on the street, and you're promoting your book, not yourself.

I tell my students, if you're interested in marine biology or llama farming, follow that string. Yes, it will probably take you a longer time to write that book, but it's not a race. That's another great thing about being a writer: you don't age out.

I just can't fathom tweeting, and I'd rather spend my time writing a book than a blog, but I rather grudgingly agreed to a Facebook page. I had a brief, intense romance with Facebook. It's weirdly addictive, but anything that time-sucking is a danger for a writer who writes as slowly as I do. Now I post only occasionally and nothing very confessional. I think I'm carbon dating myself as I speak.

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

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

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.

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.