If you don't feel that you are possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself, of losing control of the whole thing, then probably what you are doing isn't very vital.

I think the sport of wrestling, which I became involved with at the age of 14... I competed until I was 34, kind of old for a contact sport. I coached the sport until I was 47. I think the discipline of wrestling has given me the discipline I have to write.

Before I began The Cider House Rules, I thought I wanted to write about a father-son relationship that was closer, more conflicted, and ultimately more loving, than most. Then I began to think of a relationship between an old orphanage director and an unadoptable orphan - a kid who goes out into the world and fails and keeps coming back, so that the old guy ends up with someone he's got to keep.

There is no straightforward negotiation with a four year old.

I never know when I finish the novel I am writing which will be the next novel out of the station.

So, I don't work in terms of real time. I don't work in a timely fashion.

… and so he tried to accept the ache in his heart as what Dr. Larch would call the common symptoms of normal life.