Pierce Brown spent his childhood building forts and setting traps for cousins in the woods of six states and the deserts of two. Graduating from college in 2010, he fancied the idea of continuing his studies at Hogwarts… Now he lives Los Angeles, where he scribbles tales of spaceships, wizards, ghouls, and most things old or bizarre.

There’s a table off in the backyard that we sit at, and it’s decorated with fall gourds. “I’m an ambiance guy,” Brown smirks. Now that he’s officially a published author, Brown tells me back at his apartment that his day-to-day ambiance has changed a bit. He wakes up early, stays off of all social media, and writes until the late afternoon. Then he cuts himself off from writing for the rest of the day. “Sometimes I get lured back into it, like 9 at night or something if there's a big glass of red wine and it's like,, and I play the Civil Wars with my red wine,” he says. “Feet up, slippers on and my bathrobe, oh yeah.” Roommates aside, he’s living the life of a writer who’s already successful, even though that success has yet to be fully measured. And while Brown says that he's not nervous about the project, you get the sense that he actually is, and just doesn't want to talk focus on it. In fact, he's started to create other writing projects to keep his mind off of it. And it’s not just working on thefollow-up that’s keeping Brown busy. He’s also working on ideas for TV projects, which are literally scribbled all over the door to his room. “It’s likemeets,” he says of the project, tentatively titledHis roommate Drew Murray offers up his own portrait of Brown. “He throws on his music, and he’ll close up for an afternoon,” says Murray as he smokes cigarettes in their backyard. “No one can come in and talk to him, unless we have a beer in hand that we’re willing to share. And he’ll come running out with a new idea to show us — he gets so excited, he’s like a little kid — and he’ll have a notebook filled with sketches. He’s no artist, but you can see these creatures he creates, they can be villains, or masks or symbols, and he’s really a great storyteller. The kid’s going to be huge — and look how handsome he is!” “Stop it, Drew. I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Brown shouts out the door at Murray. It isn't the first time he stops him. Brown doesn’t love talking about himself, let alone having other people do it. When you ask him questions, he quickly deflects by asking you the same thing back. And when he answers a question, he tends to include you as part of the response, almost as if to share the spotlight. Even his author profile on thebook jacket is guarded, and filled with flourishes that make it read more like a piece of fiction.“I think Pierce maybe doesn’t even realize just how autobiographical a lot ofis,” Brown's editor Braff tells me over the phone. “I’ve read that book now, I can’t tell you how many times, edited it several times over. I’m so far into book two, and so far into the characters, that I’m really deep into Pierce’s psyche now. I think that in many ways, he is Darrow. In many ways he’s a guy who rose up from modest to extraordinary means and feels a kinship — ah, this is going to sound corny as hell — but a kinship with people who are social outcasts in one way or another. I think that he’s a person who is deep into two different worlds, and that makes him fascinating and it makes his characters fascinating.” Brown originally says that none of the characters in his books are based off of people in his life. Though he later contradicts himself and reveals that the character of Sevro, Darrow's rival, was based off of a kid he knew in middle school. "Just tenacious and mean as hell," he says. "Nice if you were loyal to him, but he would actually bite you in soccer games." And there is something undeniably familiar about the character of Darrow, and that idea of reaching incredible success, that seems to relate entirely to Brown. Like Darrow, Brown is drawn to people who are underrepresented, or outcast. He says he wrote the book specifically so that “people will find strength when reading the book — the kid who doesn’t want to go out, the kid who’s not social, it would be nice to give him something to motivate him. I was inspired byas a kid, and. All those things motivated me.” And like Darrow, Brown is grappling with the incredible opportunity that’s landed in his lap. It’s taken three years to publish his book, but now it has a fighting chance of being wildly successful. Not that he hasn’t earned that chance. “I’m going to be deemed pretty young for being an author,” he says, “And it came after six books failed.” He tells me that he’ll likely move out of the four-bedroom apartment soon and get his own place. “I’m kind of irritated by the Hollywood scene,” he says. “I only latch onto this space because it’s the first space I’ve had that’s completely mine. I’ve lived in 10 or 12 houses over the course of my life; you kind of start latching on to the things you can control. So now that I’m choosing to move, it seems like a strange thing.” It’s late afternoon, and Brown’s beer is almost empty. “I think that I’m the most responsible roommate, but I can also be the party pooper sometimes," he says. "I’m the one who pays the electrical bills, so I go around turning off all the lights. And I have to be the dad sometimes, and I don’t like that, because I don’t like telling people what to do. My roommates are all such happy go lucky guys, and I carry some of the stress around a lot more." It's the first time Brown says out loud what you can sense is just bubbling under the surface of his otherwise happy disposition: He's in a situation that he can't control — the reception to his book could make him an entertainment kingpin, or, at worst, a working author. But Brown isn't the kind of person who likes to lose control, as evidenced by the fact that he wants to remain extremely involved in the film process — he doesn't want to lose the reins on the world he's created for himself and his readers. “I’m along for the ride," he says, resigned, but smiling. "Hopefully the book is popular, but I can’t count on that. So it’s hard to say."was sold to Universal Pictures after this story originally published.