Inspired by our famous Writers at Work interviews, “My First Time” is a series of short videos about how writers got their start. Created by the filmmakers Tom Bean, Casey Brooks, and Luke Poling, each video is a portrait of the artist as a beginner—and a look at the creative process, in all its joy, abjection, delusion, and euphoria.

This installment features Helen DeWitt, who discusses her debut novel, The Last Samurai, published in 2000. After seven years of writing unfinished novels, DeWitt decided to quit her job as a legal secretary and devote herself to finishing one book. “I thought, I just I have to quit until my money runs out … I’m going just to sit down and do nothing but work on this book, and I’m going to finish it in a month. Then I will have a finished book, and, see, it doesn’t matter what happens then.”

Be sure to watch the previous interviews in the series:

• Jeffrey Eugenides on The Virgin Suicides, his first novel
• Ben Lerner on The Lichtenberg Figures, his first collection
• Katori Hall on Hoodoo Love, her first play
• Donald Antrim on Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World, his first novel
• Sheila Heti on The Middle Stories, her first collection
• Tao Lin on Bed, his first collection
• Christine Schutt on Nightwork, her first collection
• Branden Jacobs-Jenkins on his play Neighbors
• Gabrielle Bell on The Book of … series, her early cartoons
• J. Robert Lennon on his debut novel, The Light of Falling Stars