"'You're going to have to do something, Max. I can't handle it by myself anymore, ' she said one morning over breakfast. 'Some of the bills are going unpaid. I didn't want to tell you last month, but....' "I knew what it meant -- I was going to have to come up with a job. A real job. To hell with writing, to hell with acting, to hell with my rich fantasy life of fat, regular royalty checks and reliable agents and all the other pleasant hallucinations...