Anthony put Max to bed, and then he sat down with his incomplete manuscript and a glass of scotch. There was an elephant sitting on his lungs, and on top of that elephant was another elephant, and the elephant on top was holding a large refrigerator.

He finished the scotch and opened a bottle of good Cabernet—why not? He wouldn’t write anything new; he’d focus on tying up all the unfinished bits. A glass of wine (or two) would help with that, help him find the connections he knew were missing.

He couldn’t end a crucial scene. He couldn’t get it right. The scene was halfway through the book, when the main character, Simon, was confronting his sister about the family secret they’d both kept hidden for decades. The sister was on her deathbed. It was a critical turning point for the narrative, and everything—everything!—that followed sprang from that single interaction. Anthony had already written the scene, but he hadn’t ended it properly. He hadn’t ended it beautifully, in a way that would knock a reader’s socks off. It didn’t feel right, the way A Room Within had felt when he was writing it. Nothing felt right.

One glass of the Cabernet gone, then two, then a third. Anthony prowled the house, thinking. He checked on Max: sleeping. Back downstairs, in his office, his eyes fell on his old copy of There Comes a Time. His mother had given it to him in high school—her own copy, already dog-eared, and Anthony dog-eared it further. (Leonard, who read only commercial fiction, fast-paced, sometimes un-beautiful commercial fiction, had never taken the time to recognize its allure.)

Anthony took the book from the shelf. He flipped through it. What a perfect book. How had O’Dwyer done it? Everything about it was enviable. The dialogue rang true, the transitions were seamless, the chapter endings were perfection.

The chapter endings were perfection.

No, Anthony.

The bottle of Cabernet was empty. He stowed the bottle in the recycling bin in the garage, under yesterday’s copy of the Boston Globe and a doorstop catalogue from Restoration Hardware. Good thing they’d gone to single-stream recycling; easier to hide a bottle.

The chapter endings were perfection.

Just this once, he thought. Just this one paragraph. That’s all I need to finish off the chapter.

I’ll go back, he told himself, as he took—no, as he borrowed—O’Dwyer’s words. I’ll go back and take out that paragraph a little later, when I’ve had a little more time to think. I’ll put it in my own words. I just need to turn it in.

He turned it in.

He got back his editor’s notes on the draft. And what did it say right there, right after O’Dwyer’s words? This is beautiful! Don’t change a word.

There was a second, more ominous note: More like this!

A couple of other chapters required work in the next revision. And so it turned out it wasn’t just one paragraph Anthony borrowed—it was, as the Times article noted, about twelve hundred words. It was a few pages in total, scattered throughout the book. Unbelievable! wrote his editor. I’m practically crying, this writing is so gorgeous.