It was a brisk, sunny morning, and I was out by 8:30, early for me. On a block not far from ours I spied a guy walking toward me dressed just like I was — straight-leg cords, gray fleecy, baseball cap pulled low over long, straggly hair. I wouldn’t have given him a second thought, except that even from a distance I recognized him: a once-famous writer whose debut novel had taken the publishing world by storm, staying at or near the top of the best-seller list for months, but who had faded into mid-list obscurity, pumping out one well-reviewed but generally ignored book after another until, eventually, hardly anyone remembered who he was or why, once upon a time, they had cared. Not me. I had loved his first book, re-read it several times over the years, and continued to buy and read the novels that came after it. I mean, except for his first, they weren't great, and he wasn't a brilliant prose stylist. But I liked his sense of humor and appreciated the way his put-upon regular-guy narrators managed to extricate themselves, sometimes battered and a little worse for wear, from the stickiest of situations. And now here he was, practically a clone of myself, headed toward me on a beautiful morning in my sleepy neighborhood. I’m not inclined to hero worship or public displays of groveling, but before I knew it my hands were fumbling in the pockets of my fleecy for the notebook and pen I always carried. When I looked up, there he was, a few feet in front of me, happily unaware that the dude about to pass him on the sidewalk — a guy, weirdly, dressed just like he was — was about to waylay him and ask for his autograph. I took a step to my left, closing off his only avenue of escape, and said, “Sorry to bother you, but aren’t you __________________?” He smiled, a shy "Who me?" smile that I found endearing, and said, Why, yes, I am. I smiled back and said, “You know, I never do this, but would you mind…?” and held out the notebook and pen to him. This time his smile was bigger, oddly lupinous even, and he accepted them with an ease that suggested a practiced familiarity. Anything you’d like me to write? he asked. “No, not really." I paused. Then: "Well, maybe just: ‘To ____________, brother in arms.’” He smiled, patronizingly, I thought, and set to it. Like I said, I’m not into the whole groveling thing, and I hate it when gushing randos accost celebrities in restaurants or other public places, but while he was scribbling I had the sudden urge to ask him a question: “Tell me. How do you do it? What's the secret?” It? he said. “Yeah, all those books, year after year. All that effort, the sheer drudgery of it all. Don't you sometimes just feel like chucking it for something easier?” When he looked up from the notebook, his expression bore a trace of pity, or so it seemed to me, and I was about to remind him that he hadn't a real success since his first book, all those years ago. But he beat me to it, saying, You know, it's just something I have to do. I've tried to give it up, but it never sticks. It's like an addiction. So that's what I do. I get up, every day, make myself a pot of coffee, and then sit at the desk in my study and write for two hours. No matter what. Every day. That’s my secret. When he was done, he treated me to a smug smile, and I had to fight back the urge to reach out and slap it off his face. I looked at him, then down at the notebook and pen, which he was holding out to me as if he were a priest and I a lowly communicant. “That’s your secret?" I said. "That's your secret." I paused, then said, "That's the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” and stepped into the street, leaving him there, notebook and pen in hand.