"Melville wrote a letter to Hawthorne saying he longed for 'the calm, the coolness, the silent grass-growing mood in which a man ought always to compose,' but that he could rarely attain it because he was 'so pulled hither and thither by circumstances.'  It's the fantasy of every writer to have that kind of time.  And it's a really, really precious and rare thing when you're lucky enough to get it."