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All my life, I have taken inventory at intervals. For example, when I became a movie actor and suddenly I had to deal with fame, money and playing so many roles, I lost myself. I said, 'Who am I?' And I wrote my first book to deal with that, 'The Ragman's Son.'

There are a lot of funny things that happen in one's life.

I'm a creative person who had a lot of dark time in my life. I can still get to it: I can still go to a relationship or a time when things weren't great. But it's getting further and further from me.

When the dark days come, many wonderful moments, those will all seem dead and empty to you. It will take practice and even hard work to find the joy sometimes.

I look back into past history, the stored experiences or products of the imagination. I look no further forward than the evening.

My journey through life has led me through both light and dark places, and it's because of those experiences that I have learned how to work through my character defects and to help others do the same.

When a story is flying along, and I'm so into it that my 'real' world goes away, it can feel magical. I cease to be, my desk and computer ceases to be, and I am my character in his world. Psychologists call this a 'flow state,' and it's better than publication, money, awards, fame.

There's some real dark days where you just feel like the story is falling apart in every one. Just keep moving forward, even when you are bluffing, even when you don't quite know what is going to happen next.

But when it really happens I'm very fascinated, I'm waiting for the moment, because the moment where life abandons you and death steps in, that moment must be fantastic, no?

I've always been a happy-go-lucky person. I haven't got any dark tales, I didn't draw on my own past, I'm from a very normal stable background and had an amazing childhood, and I haven't got any complaints really.