As a writer, the ideal job is the one that allows you time and mental space away from it. Teaching seemed to me like the obvious choice - those summers off, you know - but my experience may serve as a cautionary tale.

If you had told me twenty years ago that I would write a novel set in Russia, much less two, I simply wouldn't have believed you. I had no familiarity with Russia or its history, but part of what drives me as a reader, and more and more as a writer, is curiosity, the desire to explore unfamiliar terrain and inhabit alternate lives.

Peculiar as I was, and remain, I was trained to be practical. I'm still amazed at the radical temerity of my friends, you included, Julie, who choose poetry as their vocation. I envy your faith.

You're unusual. That's better than popular if you have some courage.

Once I had started, I discovered the secret pleasure of writing a novel. It's such an immersive, deep commitment. With short stories, you're continually having to start again from scratch, but with a novel you only need one good idea every few years.

With the historical fictions, I was already doing so much research, and so much of the stories was anchored by historical truth that the move to nonfiction didn't feel all that dramatic - just another half-step to the right.

I figured that to be a writer I would need to have been born in the nineteenth century, be British, or have three names. So I turned my sights elsewhere . . . to acting.

I always think, OK, this is good, but I'll do it better next time. And so we beat on, boats against the current. . . It may not be the recipe for a life of contentment, but that imperfectability is what makes writing such an engaging endeavor, something you can do for the rest of your life and not get bored.

I haven't written anything yet that makes me think, This is it! and I don't imagine I ever will. I don't know how it is with you, but when I finish something, even when I'm pleased with the results, it never quite matches the shimmering vision that was out ahead of me as I wrote.