I got pretty good at it. Much to my surprise, the genres I had so despised as a young literary novelist were places where writing was celebrated. So long as you tell a story that falls within the fairly generous boundaries of the suspense novel, you're free to make the novel as good as you can. You're allowed to challenge the reader. You can experiment with voice and style.
Good writing is recognized and praised.
And there's always the hope that one of these days one of your books will break-through, and you'll have the kind of success that brings real publishing freedom, or at least enough time for another go at the great American Novel. So after a long apprenticeship and the usual struggles, I was more or less content. It really doesn't get any better than that. Oh, but it does get better. It gets much, much better, and that's where chance comes into the story.