I had a good job in 1984 at an agricultural research center called CATIE in Costa Rica. I was tasked with writing a complete textbook on agroforestry. It would have taken a year, maybe two. It was a secure job at a very reputable international center.

I quit the job after about five months.

I didn’t want to write a textbook. I didn’t want to work in a big organisation. I wanted to do my own thing. I wanted to write a novel.

So, I found a cabin on the slopes of a volcano in central Costa Rica and made it my writer’s den. I made a good start on a novel. The words were jumping onto the pages in Jack Kerouac style. I didn’t have much else to do except for taking walks, tending to a stray dog and writing. I spent all my waking hours and often sleeping hours immersing myself in the fictional world I was creating on the pages. I’d take a break occasionally when friends would come up on the weekend. I spent my savings on rum.

And eventually I ran out of money. I got a freelance job translating tourist brochures to English and started paying my rent for the cabin in fortnightly instalments rather than monthly. But before long I couldn’t afford any rent and had to give up my lifestyle as a writer in a cabin on the slopes of a volcano. I crawled back to CATIE and they fed me with some freelance assignments and then I moved to Nicaragua and got a job and stretched my money via the black market.

I never made it back to my writer’s den. By 1986, I moved to Wisconsin and for some reason enrolled in graduate school. I had a few months in the summer before classes started and managed to write a few more chapters.

But then life sort of got in the way and I never returned to novel writing.

Now nearly 40 years after I first became a writing hermit, I once again have a writer’s den. Padma and I built a house on the ocean that we could share with family and friends. From my desk I can watch the sun set into the Indian Ocean and when writer’s block hits I can take a stroll on a quiet beach and seek inspiration. I no longer have to worry about paying the rent in fortnightly instalments.

There’s nothing stopping me now. But I’m not sure if I’ll return to my long-abandoned novel or any of the dozens of other writing projects I’ve been brewing. I don’t know. It’s still my dream but the words no longer jump on pages like they used to. Too much brain fog now and writing requires a full-time commitment. But life no longer needs to get in the way of my writing; it can become my life. If that’s what I choose.

My writer’s den is ready for a writer. Time will tell if it gets an occupant.