My right eye starts to stress twitch and I quickly give it a rub. “It’s kind of scary that I’m now at the point in my writing process where imprisoning my ex seems like the logical next step.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to scare you. I just know you’re banking on that on-acceptance check.” My eye twitches again as Sam goes on, “I’m assuming there’s no getting out of your Italy trip, right?”

I shake my head, slow and shameful and silent. My Italy trip. A long-awaited dream getaway that is steadily morphing into a money-draining terror. When I pulled the trigger on booking this vacation a couple months ago, I fully anticipated being done with my novel. My best work has always come as the shot clock winds down, and I’ve never missed a deadline. Ever. I actually thought paying for the trip in full on my credit card would be the last incentive I needed to get my act together. Oh, sweet summer child, how wrong I was.

After researching and planning and watching Under the Tuscan Sun for the hundredth time, I am now set to stay in Rome for six whole months. The apartment I’m renting is twenty minutes from Vatican City, and has an updated kitchen, two balconies and a claw-foot tub that all but guarantees a life of perfect happiness. I leave in just over a week, two days after Cristina’s wedding.

The entire trip is also nonrefundable. And time is running out.

When I write a new novel, or am about to, I typically get half of my advance when I sign my publishing contract and the other half upon acceptance of the manuscript. I signed my new contract a year ago, using the first installment to cover my life, my mortgage and monthly bills, and leaving my on-acceptance check to pay for Italy. But here I am, with my manuscript nowhere near done while the interest on my credit card grows and grows, eating away at my sanity with gnawing jaws. Not to mention that the synopsis and first three chapters for my next book are due any day now.

My breathing turns heavy as panic starts to drip into my mind, slowly at first but then pouring in. I end up wheezing slightly into the phone.

“Kara? Try not to hyperventilate again. Where’s your inhaler?”

“I’m all out of puffs.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me? Listen, I know how fast you can write and I know you have this book inside you somewhere. You’re one of the most talented authors I’ve worked with, but success has come relatively easy to you. Now it’s time to fight for it. Only you can decide how bad you want this.”