It depends on what you define as success. But I wrote my magnum opus (The Seraphim Protocol) while fighting some very severe and crushing depression. Honestly, the only way that book could have been written was for me to be in thralls of my major depressive syndrome. For me to get where that book went, I had to be able to move my mind into a very, very dark place. It scared my wife.

Yes, life is more pleasant now that I'm getting a handle on my depression and I think I might have a new story line that might work out even though it's not as emotionally brutal as The Seraphim Protocol. But without my depression, I can't hyper-focus on things and dig and dig and dig on them. So the fact that Il Coppelia actually has a complete plot is quite a feat for me.

It's hard to write when that inner voice isn't shouting at me.