I worry that's what people are going to think about me if they kind of go backwards. But if that didn't happen to you, I'll feel better.

One of my favorite pieces of advice about being a writer came from a very formative teacher I had as an undergraduate, named John Hersey. On our last day of class together, which was also John Hersey last day before retirement, he said, "Remember, the world doesn't need any new writers." Which at first didn't seem like great advice, but when you unpacked it, it was really that it's not enough to be confident in what you do; be conscious of bringing something to the world of readers and writers that it hasn't seen before. Something idiosyncratic.

Those who know New York City primarily through tourism or mass culture may think of us natives as possessing certain shared characteristics, not all of them flattering. But the true, volatile charisma of New York lies in how balkanised it is.

You see that in the news constantly; done both the right way and the wrong way. The most recent example I can think of, obviously, is Lance Armstrong, who got it all wrong. Who wanted to apologize strategically, instead of abjectly. What got me interested was the repetitive nature of it. There's something so ritualized about it. Then the ritual needs to be reenacted very carefully and pretty frequently - Tiger Woods, and now Manti Te'o and Lance Armstrong, and a little earlier Anthony Weiner or Eliot Spitzer.

I seem to have a talent for writing endings that seem just right to me but that frustrate other people.

Luckily for you, you can close the book The Postman Always Rings Twice and break out of it, and James M. Cain can't. I can't think of any redeeming feature he has, but he's extremely compelling.

I once saw John Updike get in front of a crowd and read a story that he'd written in 1958, and I just thought, I can't even look at stuff I wrote a year ago, I can't believe he's doing this.