Nadia Comaneci

I actually sing horribly, but I used to dance pretty good. I was a gymnast, and you can usually use those gymnastic tricks with dance. Plus, they're so much fun to do. That wasn't really a big part of my career. It was just a phase.

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.