Picking up dog poop at home: my sister and I used to take turns.

Cleaning toilets in a motorway service station.

Serving tea in an insurance office to people who seemed to despise me at the age of 16 was pretty unpleasant.

Handing out leaflets for a European coach trip wearing just lederhosen, in February and March in Surrey. It was freezing, and I got fired.

There are many times for three months in a row I wrote every day, but there are also many times for three months in a row I didn't write a word. What I found is I make an appointment with myself and I don't look at each day, I look at the calendar ahead.

I have so many ideas and things bouncing around in my head that I’ve been wanting to write for years, but there are only so many hours in the day. I have books in me; I have stories I need to tell, both fiction and nonfiction; I have projects I want to do that would take me in different directions.

So much of what I’ve learned, so much of what’s good in my life, was learned because something bad happened, or from making the wrong decision. Through bad decisions I learned how to find the ways to make the right ones.

My husband, Brian Lindstrom, is my biggest supporter. There’s no doing it without him. When I was writing Torch, he believed in me more than I believed in myself. He’s always, always, always been there for me, every time I needed him. He encourages me. He believes in me.

Some books I return to again and again: Alice Munro's books, but especially "Lives of Girls and Women," Toni Morrison's "Beloved," Mary Oliver's poetry collections, Raymond Carver's short stories, Joan Didion's essays. There are so many more! It's hard to name them all. Books are my cure.

I think it would be this thing that I learned when I was writing my first book. It would be surrender to your own mediocrity, which sounds kind of sad, right?