The high desert has an effect on people. The place has a way of swallowing you up.
When you start writing, you have your characters on a metaphorical paved road, and as they go down it, all these other roads become available that they can go down. And a lot of writers have roadblocks in front of those roads: they won’t allow their characters to go down those roads. . . I’ve never put any roadblocks on any of these paths. My characters can go wherever they would naturally go, and I’ll follow them.