Fellow writers can relate: there's something that happens when I write. Each wave of the fountain pen...each impress of the keyboard letters feels like a stroke of genius—or, at the very least, the possibility of genius.

Writing a book seems to me a fairly risky venture. I suppose a musician could blame a faulty instrument for a poor performance. A carpenter could blame his tools. Writers can only blame themselves, for every page is a product of their imagination. If I begin this story, I must finish it, if only to prove to everyone I told about it that I could actually complete what I claim to be capable of. But even if I finish... what if it isn't well-received? What if publishers reject the manuscript, again and again?