What's it like, writing a book?

"What's it like," someone asked me, "writing a book?"

Well, no, no one really asked me that, but I wish they would, because I have the perfect, absolutely right answer.

Writing a book is, on a much, much smaller scale, like having a baby. No, not the physical having part, although plotting and labor pains have a great deal in common--I'm talking about the part where you look at this tiny, messy, unfinished thing and wonder how on earth you could ever love something that much.

And they grow,...