He knew he had the novel in him. He had no idea where it was hiding, but it was there and all he had to do was to find it. He had looked in most of the obvious places but all he had found was memoir and the odd bit of non-fiction. They were fine but they were not a novel nor, he knew, could he change them sufficiently to make them into one for he was too close to every experience. He knew if he could find that first sentence, he would be off and running. But all he could come up with was either “It was a dark and stormy night” or “Call me Ishmael”. He thought of changing the latter to “Call me Ishy” but, well, that it wouldn’t work was obvious. So he kept searching, knowing that like, Hamlet said, it was all just words, words, words. And he wondered if anyone would bother to read a book by Yorick Smith.