I’m sometimes asked how long it’s taken me to write Ravenous. The answer is, it depends.

You could say it’s taken six years. I first got the idea in 2005 when I studied with Sri B.K.S. Iyengar at the Yoga Journal Colorado Conference. Guruji is the teacher of my teachers. I thought that something in the nexus of yoga and food could, perhaps, unwind my ferocious appetite.

I thought then I would mostly do reporting. That I’d speak with lots of wise teachers, learn from them, and then, somehow, my life would transform. But as I began to do my reporting, I slowly realized that what I really wanted to write was a memoir.

In 2007, I began writing a proposal. The next year I wrote a sample chapter. Then I sat on it. Then I was downsized from four days of work a week to two. And I thought, surely the universe was telling me, “It’s time to write that book.”

In 2009 I wrote another sample chapter. My agent sold it in three weeks. Then I got upsized again to four days of work a week, so I had to write really fast.

But you could also say it took me 38 years to write this book. Because when I was 12, I had an idea for a book I wanted to write but didn’t believe I actually could. I told myself, I’ll write a book someday. And now, at 50, I have.

Some promises are just too important to break. And this was one of them.