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But really, it was reading that led me to writing. And in particular, reading the American classics like Twain who taught me at an early age that ordinary lives of ordinary people can be made into high art.

Every time I finish a book, I forget everything I learned writing it - the information just disappears out of my head.

I didn't originally intend on writing a book. I started writing during the day to feel like I was accomplishing something creative.

I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien to my life.

My failure, during the first five or six years of my art training, to get set in the right direction, and the disappointment which it caused me, drove me the more persistently into writing as an alternative.

The process of composition, messing around with paragraphs and trying to make really good prose, is hardwired into my personality.

However, I began composing as soon as I started taking piano lessons.

When I am composing, I try to clear my mind of having to publish, or having to sell a book or find readers. That kind of thinking gets in the way.

I went to work in an office and learned, among other lessons, to do things I did not care for, and to do them well. Before I left this office, two of my books had already been published.