Pyle didn't know how to write about that. He didn't know how to imagine it. He was afraid if he imagined it, it might happen. He was superstitious.

It was satire. Not a dystopian novel.

A farce. Over the top.

So he decided to fall back and regroup. A PI (post-inaccrochable) novel might not be the best idea.

Hemingway said to write what you know about.

John D. MacDonald said, "People are interested in the mechanics of a craft. Remember The Violent World of Sam Huff?"

Pyle would write an underground writer procedural novel, about attending the Gulf Coast Writers Conference, and giving two presentations, one on publishing as a business and one on self-publishing as a strategy.

Pyle had done this once before.

Forty was about attending Fantasy Fest '86 in Key West and Miami Book Fair International, selling Evil Genius and Open Book, at a street fair and a book fair, the smell of lamb, roasting on a spit, the pennants snapping in the breeze.

Fiesta!

Forty was Pyle's 40th book.

WORKING TITLE would be his 363rd book.

He wasn't going to call it Three Hundred Sixty-Three.

He probably wouldn't call it The Above-Ground Gourmet. Or Fiesta!

It would find its title. Blessed is the man who's found his work.

Maybe he'd call it WORK.

Work is both a noun and a verb. It means to work and it means work-product. What you get when you work.

It also means calling. I have found my work.