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I was a bookish kid, not really athletic.

I wasn't athletic. I played baseball, but I was terrible.

In college, I think I probably positioned myself as an aspiring writer, meaning I dressed sort of extravagantly and adopted all the semi-Byronic affectations, as if I were writing, although I wasn't actually doing any writing.

To me, stretching the capabilities of my imagination is a crucial aspect of writing fiction; you could think of it as a mental form of athleticism.

I was an athlete, so I have kind of an athletic sensibility towards writing. I can work for many long hours without fatiguing.

I mean, I like to consider myself a reasonably athletic guy.

Not until my middle thirties did I consider myself a novelist.

I was writing novels in high school and apprenticed myself in a way both to Faulkner and to Hemingway.