Point and Shoot, Florida (YU)--Heap was back at home.

He complained about not being able to get back into his routine because Brenda was at the house, underfoot, but not many people could sympathize. There's a pea under every mattress for princesses like Heap.

What did he want? Egg in his beer and his money back?

Where he was in real life and where he was in his book were inching closer together now, though.

He had been behind since Thanksgiving, no, since he took a job, no, since forever: one can't write and publish in real time. There has to be some lag, to write, and publish. To reflect, consider. Correct errors. Think.

Writing and publishing in real time wouldn't be a book, it would be a tape recording, or a webcam.

Heap was a writer. There was more to writing--and publishing--than reporting, or recording what was happening as it happened.