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I felt a failure because I couldn't sustain myself from what I earned from my writing. My day jobs were what mattered, and it was hard to even get those because universities wouldn't hire me as a real writer.

I was learning the craft; I didn't study writing in school. Rejection was my motivation, and failure is what taught me.

Failure has been my best friend as a writer. It tests you, to see if you have what it takes to see it through.

It was failing part of my Ph.D. that led me into novel-writing. By then I was 29, had remarried and had a second baby. It struck me that I'd lost my path in life and I felt frustrated. That's when I started to write.

Your personal life, your professional life, and your creative life are all intertwined. I went through a few very difficult years where I felt like a failure. But it was actually really important for me to go through that. Struggle, for me, is the most inspirational thing in the world at the end of the day - as long as you treat it that way.

Writing stopped being fun when I discovered the difference between good writing and bad and, even more terrifying, the difference between it and true art. And after that, the whip came down.

My inner critic who had begun piping up about how hopeless I was and how I didn't know to write.

There's no path to being a writer that's applicable to everyone. Some young writers have the fortitude to work in a vacuum. For me, it was important to have some sense that my failures weren't unique.

But whatever my failure, I have this thing to remember - that I was a pioneer in my profession, just as my grandfathers were in theirs, in that I was the first man in this section to earn his living as a writer.