Actually, he was working on it before he took a break to write "The Fourth Hand," a shorter, more compact but still darkly comic novel.
He poured years into the project, taking a break to write his masterpiece, "Cavalleria Rusticana," before completing his Heine opera in 1894.
Mr. Johnson said yesterday that he was taking a break to write a book on a nonadvertising subject, the psychology of aging, and then plans to return to the industry in New York, where he previously worked for agencies like Wells Rich Greene BDDP.
While working on it, Ms. Sebold, who is 39, took a break to write another book, "Lucky" (Scribner, 1999), her memoir of being raped in a tunnel during her freshman year at Syracuse University, a tunnel where a girl had been murdered and dismembered.
The band took a break to write more songs for the album.
The band took a break to write new material throughout 2008 and prepare a new record for release, slated for 2009.
With that thought, I had one of my New Year's resolutions (because, as anyone who marches to the academic calendar knows, the start of the fall semester is the real new year): No matter how busy the dash to production, I would be sure to take a break to reflect and write this page.
I worked part-time, and I'm now taking a career break to write a book.
He was so distraught by his lack of progress on the complicated book that he took an abrupt break to write "A World Lit Only by Fire," a short work on the medieval era and the Renaissance.
