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I was working probably at the age of 10, when I had my first paper route. I had every different kind of job you could possibly imagine as a young kid.

My first job, 9 years old, part-time, was selling Christmas cards door-to-door. Ten years old, my brother and I had paper routes. We delivered a morning paper called the 'L.A. Examiner.' Get up at 4 o'clock, fold your papers, deliver them and get ready for school.

I started out when I was 29 - too young to write novels. I was broke. I was on unemployment insurance. I was supposed to be writing a Ph.D. dissertation, so I had a typewriter and a lot of paper.

Starting my career as a kid, I was doing what jobs I got.

Like most people, I was not able to start selling my stories right away. So I had many other jobs along the way to becoming a writer, including toy maker, gravedigger, cookware salesman, and assembly line worker. Eventually, I became an elementary teacher and worked with second and fourth graders.

I opted for a freelance writing career. I was lucky enough to have the means to do it.

I had many different careers early on. I knew I wanted to be a writer. But, like so many people, I didn't know how to be one - other than just do it. I didn't know what form it would take.

I can always track my career by the children - I started writing right after the 14-year-old was born, and sold my first book just in time to pay for the birth of the 12-year-old.

I was creating commitment devices of my own long before I knew what they were. So when I was a starving post-doc at Columbia University, I was deep in a publish-or-perish phase of my career. I had to write five pages a day towards papers, or I would have to give up five dollars.

I always wanted to be a writer, from being a little kid onwards. My dad and my mum both had phases when that was what they did.