Granny Weatherwas was not a jouster in the lists of love, but, as an intelligent onlooker, she knew how the game was played.
Writing, and especially writing a novel, where you get to sit in a room by yourself with either a pen and a paper or a computer for a couple of years, is a very solitary occupation. You can read sales figures - a hundred thousand books sold, half a million books sold - but they are just numbers.