During his stay at Arches, Abbey accumulated a large volume of notes and sketches which later formed the basis of his first non-fiction work, "Desert Solitaire". These notes remained unpublished for almost a decade while Abbey pursued other jobs and attempted with only moderate success to pursue other writing projects, including three novels which proved to be commercial and critical failures. Eventually Abbey revisited the Arches notes and diaries in 1967, and after some editing and revising had them published as a book in 1968.