I learned there is the business of writing and writing itself and they are two very different things. Along the way I learned that the more you succeed as a writer, the less time you have to actually think or read or write. I did not dare dream beyond that, so every moment since then has been thrilling in one way or another. The dream had been to write a good book and sell it. I assembled an essay collection and that sold too. Two very long years and two revisions later, I sold that novel and it came out in 2014. I was writing for myself and was not at all concerned with what would happen to the work, not just yet. It was some of the most fun I have ever had as a writer because everything was at stake but also nothing was at stake.
It was an exhilarating experience to have so much unencumbered time to immerse myself wholly in a world of my own making. I wrote for up to 10 hours a day for four months to develop the first draft of An Untamed State. The summer after my first year as a professor, I decided to write a novel.
