I’ve been writing since I was nine, and throughout this long, often rocky, career, I’ve always dreamed of writing in a house near the beach. I imagined a cold, winter beach, where I was the only person on a long stretch of sand. For me, staring at a stretch of water, preferably one that crashes and roars, gives me permission to write the stories that have rattled around in my head every day of my life. When I chased grasshoppers in the empty lot across the street from the projects where I grew up, I longed for those days when my father would pile all of us into the Buick…