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HA JIN: You know, my teachers worried though they help me a lot in the beginning. But once you graduate, OK, as a young writer, you graduate from a program, and very often they would have some kind of workshop-- a writing community. But those communities very often don't last, honestly, a year or two. Then they would be on their own. Eventually, everybody's on his own. I think in a way, in my case, I lived in Georgia for many years. I was on my own. It was good. It really forced me to be self-sufficient and eventually, you have to work. You know, staying home and to work hard-- spend a lot of hours every day. I tried, if you write fiction, you have to do it every day, especially when you write a longer piece. You have to do every day no matter what, because once you stop the whole thing with get cold. And then it will be half cooked. You can't warm it up. It would be a different thing. So you have to really, no matter what, you have to do something every day. You know people always think that there's a sense for success or a aura of success for a writer. I don't think that in the beginning you should think about that. Failure is basically a part of, the major part of, the writer's life, and that's why I never, never encourage my students to be a professional writer. You can write a good book or two, that's fine. If you feel that this is the way of life, that you can only exist-- find meaning on the page-- that's fine. You do the writing. You try to be a writer, a professional writer. But if you don't have that kind of longing, don't bother about it, because there are so many good professions that will make you happier as a person. So I think really don't take it too seriously. Always considered the failure as part of the process.