I did see myself as a novelist, even though I was having trouble finishing this first novel. After it was published, it was only read by about ten people, but they happened to be ten people who gave it to ten other people and eventually — you know, not only was it not a commercial success, it wasn’t by any means, I don’t think, a success on its own terms. I didn’t know how to do it, and it ended up, because I didn’t know how to do it — I wanted to have a shattered narrative, but I didn’t have a clue how to do that, and so it was confusing. So the publisher pressed me to straighten out the chronology, so it became just a simple novel with a flashback, which wasn’t my intention at all. But anyway, enough people read it so that I was offered a contract for a second novel.