And that’s exactly what I like about the stories you’ve written that I’ve read. There’s a comfort to me as a reader in the obvious time put into them, but the payoff is that they are all different — sometimes even from story to story. Putting a reader on a train in Africa, or having someone follow two people into the woods — to the summit — and then something wonderful happens…it’s what I like about what you write.

I think it’s a harder go in many ways to make it when doing what you want and not sticking to formula. But at the same time, I think of my favorite writers and how iconic some of them are and why. And it’s usually because they just wrote what they wanted to write. By staying true to what they loved, they eventually rose above those sticking to formula.