With the recent death of Neil Armstrong, those of us of a certain age were suddenly swept back to that moment on July 20, 1969 when impossibility was trounced by science, boldness and imagination. For me, the fiction writer, the moon landing is significant for quite another reason. It is a pivotal background player in “Gambler” at a key moment in the story and it provides the character Victor Sinclare with one more “coming of age” experience that will not only turn the story but redirect his life.

Somewhere, somehow in my evolution as a writer, I discovered that surrounding myself with “things” that connected me to significant periods in my life near my writing desk not only added a measure of comfort, but also enhanced the creative process. When I went blank or struggled, I could lean back and look over to my special shelf on the bookcase and gaze at any number of totems, pictures and various special pieces of “me,” spread out on a card table at a yard sale, the assortment wouldn’t fetch ten dollars. The collection is invaluable, priceless really, and possesses power and magic. It’s me, mine and off limits to all. Each piece can disconnect me when I stall out and transport me to special moments in my life. I’m taken away. I forget whatever creative problem is at hand. When I return to the page I’m reengaged and renewed. That shelf is my “refresh” button.

If naivete were currency I would have been a wealthy man back in 1998 as I set about writing A Gambler’s Feast, a fictional remembrance of four summer months during the not-so-recent past: 1969. I had shed the obligations of a 9-5 job, could afford a year or so off from chasing new public relations clients, had notebooks and journals full of ideas and observations and a quiet space to write my debut novel. I was certain it would be snapped up by an agent and published shortly thereafter. If, as it is said, “The journey is the arrival,” this writer has arrived more than I care to remember, and the journey didn’t cover the route that I mapped. I got lost in storms, turned around, took the wrong roads and misplaced my compass. But I did finally get to my destination, although had I known in advance what lay in store for me, I might have never booked passage on this voyage.

There is stretch of road not far from our house that for years was part of my regular commute downtown. I still drive that stretch of Cary Street from time to time. At a precise point along the way I relive a moment, a thought actually, that went through my head after I had committed to go out on my own, and after several false starts, write my novel. This was the voice in my head: “Now Bill, you have a mortgage, three boys on the way to college, a regular pay check and a wife who loves you. You’re fifty years old.” The volume of the coda was somewhat amplified: “What the Hell are you thinking?!”