In your twenties you unquestioningly believe you're writing in pencil, a striking first draft. You do things with such confidence. You know you're so strong, so individual, wholly unique: that you have power over heaven and earth, and that the future and its wonders are either already in your hands or will be after you do the next thing, or the thing that follows naturally after that. And so you bravely pick up the existential pencil and sketch a few opening sentences, the speculative first paragraph. You encourage the woman or man you love to write alongside you, relishing the co-authoring of this huge improvisational adventure, this big and beautiful game. You write and write and write and it all seems so very easy, and before you know it you're already on Chapter Sixteen and that's great because just how much you've done, and how very good it is . . . or will be, definitely, when you've had a chance to give it an edit. Until the lunch in Los Gatos when you realize there will no second draft, that your wife doesn't love you any more, and you've been writing with indelible ink all along.