As he sat down to write, Joe felt sickness creeping up on him. Perhaps it was the gasoline fumes wafting in through the open window from the filling station across the street, stealing what sweetness the morning air would have offered. How many times had he done this now, sitting down to write the words that would barely trickle out of him, and expecting a sudden torrent of prose to drown out all that had come before, all the dry books he'd read in this seat, all the memories he struggled to suppress if he couldn't translate into great literature, and swell to a dazzling sea between two coasts, or covers?
