It's a good thing, rather than bad, when work you produce results from failure. That's how it happened when I wrote my first novel, "Dress Gray," beginning on Memorial Day in the summer of 1977. I rented the first floor of a house on High Street in Sag Harbor, New York and shoved one of the twin beds in the guest bedroom up against the room's north wall, hauled in a wooden desk chair and a folding 4 by 8 table, set up my IBM Model D electric typewriter and tore open a ream of typing paper and put it next to me and sat down and started writing.
I wrote every day in that little spare bedroom from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. By the middle of June, I had completed 200 pages, which I handed to my editor over dinner one night. The next day she called to tell me they were "great, keep going," so I did, completing another 200 pages by the end of August, which I also handed in over dinner and was rewarded with the same praise and prompting.
