I began writing what would become my first novel in 1999 after writing the poem above. I have been asked many times over the years, when did I write my first novel and where did the idea come from? Here are some answers. If you've already heard them, my appologies. But this is how it happened. And so it began, at the end of the first month of the new year, 1999, a year in which I would write over 800 poems Fresh off of moving from Taos where, the month before back to Dallas,