Better to think of writing, of what one does, as an activity, rather than an identity to keep the calling a verb rather than a noun.

A novel is a daily labor over a period of years. A novel is a job. But a story can be like a mad, lovely visitor, with whom you spend a rather exciting weekend.

An agony. The exit like the entrance - but reserved. A palindrome: gut-tug.

She hadn't been given the proper tools to make a real life with, she decided, that was it. She'd been given a can of gravy and a hairbrush and told, "There you go." -- Willing

People will do anything, anything, for a really nice laugh.

Your numbness is something perhaps you cannot help. It is what the world has done to you. But your coldness. That is what you do to the world.

Don't make your own life your project in your own life: total waste of time.