“When I staggered to my feet, I was at least able to breathe. My throat the size of a straw, and each inhale made a weird screaming sound, I was breathing. I lurched into the bathroom and threw up in the with such force that vomit splashed the mirror. I grayed out and knees buckled. This time it was my brow I struck, thunking it the lip of the basin, and although the back of my head didn’t there was a very respectable lump there by noon, though), my did, a little. This latter bump also left a purple mark, which I lied about, telling folks who asked that I’d run into the bath-door in the middle of the night, silly me, that’ll teach a fella to get at two A.M. without turning on a lamp.

“When I regained complete consciousness (if there is such a state), I floor. I got up, disinfected the cut on my forehead, and on the lip of the tub with my head lowered to my knees until I felt enough to stand up. I sat there for fifteen minutes, I guess, that space of time I decided that barring some miracle, my career Harold would scream in pain and Debra would moan in disbut what could they do? Send out the Publication Police? me with the Book-of-the-Month-Club Gestapo? Even if they could, what difference would it make? You couldn’t get sap out of a brick or blood out of a stone. Barring some miraculous recovery, my life as a writer was over. And if it is? I asked myself. What’s on for the back jrty, Mike? You can play a lot of Scrabble in jrty years, go on a lot of Crossword Cruises, drink a lot of whiskey. But is that enough?

What else are you going to put on your back jrty? I didn’t want to think about that, not then. The next forty years could take care of themselves; I would be happy just to get through New Year’s Day of 1998.

When I felt I had myself under control, I went back into my study, shuffled to the computer with my eyes resolutely on my feet, felt around for the right button, and turned off the machine. You can damage the program shutting down like that without putting it away, but under the circumstances, I hardly thought it mattered. That night I once again dreamed I was walking at twilight on Lane Forty-two, which leads to Sara Laughs; once more I wished on the evening star as the loons cried on the lake, and once more I sensed something in the woods behind me, edging ever closer. It seemed my Christmas holiday was over.

That was a hard, cold winter, lots of snow and in February a flu epidemic that did for an awful lot of Derry’s old folks. It took them the way a hard wind will take old trees after an ice storm. It missed me completely. I hadn’t so much as a case of the sniffles that winter. In March, I flew to Providence and took part in Will Weng’s New England Crossword Challenge. I placed fourth and won fifty bucks. I framed the uncashed check and hung it in the living room. Once upon a time, most of my framed Certificates of Triumph (Jo’s phrase; all the good phrases are Jo’s phrases, it seems to me) went up on my office walls, but by March of 1998, I wasn’t going in there very much. When I wanted to play Scrabble against the computer or do a tourney-level crossword puzzle, I used the Powerbook and sat at the kitchen table. I remember sitting there one day, opening the Powerbook’s main menu, going down to the crossword puzzles… then dropping the cur ’two or three items further, until it had highlighted my old pal, Word What swept over me then wasn’t frustration or impotent, balked (I’d experienced a lot of both since finishing All the yfrom the p), sadness and simple longing. Looking at the Word Six icon was sud-like looking at the pictures of Jo I kept in my wallet. Studying I’d sometimes think that I would sell my immortal soul in order have her back again… and on that day in March, I thought I would soul to be able to write a story again. Go on and try it, then, a voice whispered. Maybe things have changed. Except that nothing had changed, and I knew it. So instead of openword Six, I moved it across to the trash barrel in the lower right.

corner of the screen, and dropped it in. Goodbye, old pal. Weinstock called a lot that winter, mostly with good news. in March she reported that Helen’s Promise had been picked as one the Literary Guild’s main selection for August, the other half a legal thriller by Steve Martini, another veteran of the eight-tosegment of the 5’mes bestseller list. And my British publisher, loved Helen, was sure it would be my “breakthrough book.” ’ British sales had always lagged.)…Promise is sort of a new direction for you,” Debra said. “Wouldn’t you kind of thought it was,” I confessed, and wondered how Debbie respond if I told her my new-direction book had been written a dozen years ago.

il’it’s got… I don’t know… a kind of maturity.”

I think the connection’s going. You sound muffled.” I did. I was biting down on the side of my hand to keep from with laughter. Now, cautiously, I took it out of my mouth and. bite-marks. “Better?” lots. So what’s the new one about? Give me a hint.” know the answer to that one, kiddo.”

“"You’ll have to read the book to find out, Josephine,’”

“Right?”

“Yessum.”

“Well, keep it coming. Your pals at Putnam are crazy about the way you’re taking it to the next level.” I said goodbye, I hung up the telephone, and then I laughed wildly for about ten minutes. Laughed until I was crying. That’s me, though. Always taking it to the next level.

During this period I also agreed to do a phone interview with a Newsweek writer who was putting together a piece on The New American Gothic (whatever that was, other than a phrase which might sell a few magazines), and to sit for a Publishers lekly interview which would appear just before publication of Helen’s Promise. I agreed to these because they both sounded softball, the sort of interviews you could do over the phone while you read your mail. And Debra was delighted because I ordinarily say no to all the publicity. I hate that part of the job and always have, especially the hell of the live TV chat-show, where nobody’s ever read your goddam book and the first question is always “Where in the world do you get those wacky ideas?” The publicity process is like going to a sushi bar where you’re the sushi, and it was great to get past it this time with the feeling that I’d been able to give Debra some good news she could take to her bosses. “Yes,” she could say, “he’s still being a booger about publicity, but I got him to do a couple of things.” All through this my dreams of Sara Laughs were going on—not every night but every second or third night, with me never thinking of them in the daytime. I did my crosswords, I bought myself an acoustic steel guitar and started learning how to play it (I was never going to be invited to tour with Patty Loveless or Alan Jackson, however), I scanned each day’s bloated obituaries in the Derry News for names that I knew. I was pretty much dozing on my feet, in other words. What brought all this to an end was a call from Harold Oblowski not more than three days after Debra’s book-club call. It was storming out-side—a vicious snow-changing-over-to-sleet event that proved to be the last and biggest blast of the winter. By mid-evening the power would be off all over Derry, but when Harold called at five P.M… things were just getting cranked up.

“I just had a very good conversation with your editor,” Harold said.

Very enlightening, very energizing conversation. Just got off the in fact.”

“Oh?”

“Oh indeed. There’s a feeling at Putnam, Michael, that this latest of yours may have a positive effect on your sales position in the It’s very strong.”

“Yes,” I said, “I’m taking it to the next level.”

“Huh?”

“I’m just blabbing, Harold. Go on.”

“Well… Helen Nearing’s a great lead character, and Skate is your villain ever.” I said nothing. “Debra raised the possibility of making Helen’s Promise the opener of a book contract. A very lucrative three-book contract. All without prompting from me. Three is one more than any publisher has to commit to ’til now.