I suppose many writers entertain the hermit fantasy from time to time. For me, it came shortly after the publication of my first book,
Dogwalker. I felt certain that if I could hole myself up in a cabin somewhere remote and free of distraction, I would produce the next Great American Novel.
It turned out my friend Bill owned such a cabin, located deep in the wilderness of the Northeast Kingdom in Vermont. Bill needed money and sold the place to me for roughly half of the advance I had received on that first book. The cabin was built out of spare materials from Bill’s other construction jobs. It looked a bit like a Dr. Seuss creation. It was located high up on a mountainside, deep in the woods and so...