I had been writing professionally since 1988

The biggest problem has been exhaustion. I've spent about 6 of the last 14 years completely bedridden.

...maybe it was better to break a man's leg than to break his heart.

For me, being a writer was never a choice. I was born one. All through my childhood I wrote short stories and stuffed them in drawers. I wrote on everything. I didn't do my homework so I could write

This self-respect and sense of self-worth, the innermost armament of the soul, lies at the heart of humanness; to be deprived of it is to be dehumanized, to be cleaved from, and cast below, mankind.

Since signing with Universal, I have been working closely with Gary Ross, the director, producer and screenwriter. We have spent many hours on the phone, and I've been sending him information and items that have been useful to the writing process.

But with nonfiction, the task is very straightforward: Do the research, tell the story