Speaking from experience, I can tell you that writing is a lonely avocation. You spend vast amounts of time in a room by yourself, which translates to lots of opportunities to ask yourself: is this really a good idea?

This is why I especially admire what Andy Gross did, which is to leave - in his peak earning years - a highly successful career as a corporate executive to become a novelist. Andy was President of HEAD Sports, Le Coq Sportif, and The Leslie Fay Companies.

Since Andy was known as a turnaround expert - he took struggling companies and made them thrive again - he was used to being recruited from one job into another. Yes, each new job had its challenges, but each new challenge came with a formal structure: a salary, employees, customers, products to sell, and investors to please. When you decide to become a novelist, you enter a world utterly devoid of structure. Your have no income, no agent, no publisher, no readers, and – at first – no book to sell.

Andy recalls, "I majored in English at Middlebury and got in because I was sort of a poetry jock. I edited the literary magazine there. But after gradation I never thought about my writing aspirations again. I wouldn't even call them dreams.

"Some of the turnarounds I led were successful - HEAD was a textbook turnaround - but some weren't. After four positions within about fifteen years, I was a minority shareholder in a Canadian skiwear firm, things didn't go the way I hoped, and I was asked to leave, quickly."

This time, Andy didn't just jump back into another company. For the first time, he felt burned out.

"More than being burned out of energy, I was burned out of desire to keep reinventing myself in this industry. So my wife and I went down to Key West, and we talked about my feelings that I had left my blood on the field and I didn’t want to go back onto it. I asked her to give me a year to try being a writer, that we would audit my progress carefully, and that if it didn't seem like I would be successful, I would elbow myself back into another corporate position."

His, wife, Lynn, was extremely supportive - not only then but also in the years of hard work and uncertainty that followed - and they decided to give it a shot. Andy approached his new field in a businesslike manner, and immediately enrolled in several writing programs to "measure if I was any good. If I couldn't convince small groups of 10-12 people I could do this, then I wouldn’t be able to convince the public and publishers."

Andy was reassured by this experience; he felt that others respected his work and took seriously his feedback on their work. He started working on a political thriller called "Hydra." It took him a year to write, then another year to edit and find an interested agent. (If you were thinking 'instant success,' think again.)

"After a year of writing, I didn't have an agent or a reader. Something like 30 potential agents rejected me. This life change thing - when everyone around you is completely questioning why you've lost your marbles - was starting to seem a bit unstable. My wife was defending not just me but also her own choices, too.

"I did luck out in finally finding an interesting agent. All of a sudden it looked terrific. Got myself on Cloud Nine, the agent put the book out for offers, and we went to Nantucket for a short break. We expected to have a deal by the time we returned.

"The book didn't sell. Eventually I was two years down the road, 20 publishers later, and it was 'sorry, we did our best.'"

Andy says he never got glum during this process, that as new comments came in he would immediately try to rework sections of the book and make it stronger. Still, he was two years out of a highly successful career with little to show for it, but with responsibility for three teenage kids, a wife and a house.

But still, things didn't look good. Then, luck and hard work joined forces.

"I was sitting around," says Andy, "Wondering what cliff I would drive my car over. Out of the blue, I got a call from someone asking if I would take a call from the author James Patterson. Someone at Warner had sent him a copy of my manuscript with a note scrawled on the cover 'this guy does women well.' At that point I would have taken a call from the mailman if he had anything nice to say about my book."

James Patterson was the former president of the big advertising agency J Walter Thompson. He had much in common with Andy, having also left a corporate career to become a novelist. At that point Patterson had established himself as a successful thriller writer, but he hadn't yet achieved the mega success he enjoys today.

"We met in a diner in White Plains, since at the time we both lived up here in the New York suburbs. Jim said 'you have the goods, I know why your book didn't get published.' He told me I could spend another year repackaging it and trying to resell it again, or I could help him work on a good idea he had that he didn’t have enough time to pursue on his own. We hit it off; because we had similar backgrounds, he knew where I wanted to get to. It was an opportunity to get inside the closed circle I so desperately wanted to crack."

Andy agreed to work with Patterson, and their first collaboration was a significant financial success. He had successfully found a way to support his family as a writer. But it was a big decision; he was essentially working for someone else, and he received no credit for that first book.

"Working with Jim was like a combination MFA and MBA rolled into one. He knows what kind of stories he wants to tell, has a keen sense of what will appeal to his readers, especially women, and what's vital in a scene for it to succeed."

Over the next seven years the pair collaborated on five other books. All went to #1. Andy’s name started to appear on the covers, at first in tiny type but eventually just as large as Patterson's.

By Andy’s description, "'The Women's Murder Club' Series became one of the leading crime series of all time. My personal favorite was 'The Jester,' set in the thirteenth century in France. 'Lifeguard' had a great, likeable hero with the odds all stacked against him. I did a book a year for six years. 'Judge & Jury,' our last together, came out in July 2006. All of them went to number one."

Now almost a decade into his new career, Andy still had a thought in mind that had formed when he was working on his first novel, the one no publisher ever bought. He not only wanted to be a successful writer, but he also wanted to build his own brand. A lot of people and companies talk about building a successful brand - something that customers know, like and trust - but it is a very difficult thing to pull off.

"At some point waiting for the seventh project to come from Jim, I came up with an idea for a book. As I told you, seeking an agent for my first book was an exercise in frustration. This time I sent out a fax to the guy I wanted, walked back upstairs, and literally as my butt hit the seat got a phone call back from him. A week later, four publishers were bidding for it, and we sold the book, which was 'The Blue Zone,' and two others. It was a lucrative three book deal."

Andy's first published solo novel - a thriller with a compelling heroine - came out in the spring of 2007. Publishers Weekly, the highly respected industry magazine, wrote, "Gross makes a solo debut superior to his collaborative efforts." The Los Angeles Times said, "Gross has learned well from his partner in crime. (The book) is impossible to put down!"

Yes, the book sold well (appearing on the bestseller lists in the US, UK, and Australia) and is being published in 22 other countries. But Andy's story gets even better.

On a brisk morning in early November 2007, I interviewed Andy by phone. He apologized in advance that another call might be coming in from his publisher, because he had just signed an unprecedented six-book deal and he'd been told the publisher wanted to call to give him a "phone hug." The deal is unprecedented because six represents a very long-term commitment to a single author. Andy's brand is off and running, and his readers seem eager for more stories.

Andy admits, "I'm a great believer in luck. Timing and luck came together and I was in a position to accept the light. My work was good enough, for whatever ever reason. I never published my first book, but that book got me to Jim Patterson.

"What gives me the most pride is that in two completely separate endeavors in life, I have managed to gain some success. The fact that neither had anything to do with the other gives me the most satisfaction. That makes me think there must be something inside of me that accounts for this success."

The author speaks these words in a quiet way, after being pushed to describe what makes him feel proud. In that respect, he reveals a common trait of people who have successfully refocused their lives. They remain curious and eager to see what they can accomplish, and willing to stay the course until their hard work pays off.

To learn more, visit Andy's web site.