Aaron Tracy

He's bursting with creativity and ambition.

Only when he's writing does he feel the kind of transcendence that exists nowhere else in his life.

Dahl has already had a little success with short stories, like the one that got Walt Disney and Eleanor Roosevelt's attention.

So he builds himself a writing office in his small bachelor apartment and spends all day, every day, working on his craft.

Like a lot of people determined to go into the creative arts, he's throwing himself into it, body and soul, which, of course, is not necessarily the right move.

The life of a writer is a life of rejection, even for those who are most successful.

It's basically an exercise in daily humiliations.

So if you make writing your whole identity, you're going to be in big trouble.

Speaking from personal experience, before I got married and started a family, anytime I would fail with a TV pitch or a pilot not getting picked up, it would be an earthquake.

You gotta have balance in your life.

Right now, Dahl has none.

My grandfather used to say, you marry the person you're dating at the age you want to be married, which I always found pretty cynical.

I'm more of a romantic at heart, and I think Dahl is too.

He's in his mid-30s, and he's majorly resisted settling down.

The guy has dated some of the most glamorous, most influential women on the planet.

So part of the reason he's still single is that his bar is high.

And Dahl, like I said, is a romantic.

He doesn't want to marry someone unless he feels that transcendent feeling.

His mentor, Charles Marsh, has been pleading with him to just settle on someone already.

He tells Dahl that his lack of a wife and his lack of success with writing are inextricably linked.