“The new book seemed to want to take place in Pittsburgh, and thus, in my basement room, I returned to the true fountain city, the mysterious source of so many of my ideas. I didn’t stop to think about what I was doing, whom it would interest, what my publisher and the critics would think of it, and, sweetest of all, I didn’t give a single thought to what I was trying to say. I just wrote. I had characters. I had their story to tell. And, most importantly of all, I had the voice to tell it with. Six weeks later, after Ayelet had taken the bar exam, I took a deep breath and told her that while in all that time I’d done nothing to solve the problems of Fountain City, I did have one hundred and seventeen pages of a novel called Wonder Boys.”

— Wrecked, by Michael Chabon