He felt intensely literary, sitting there in his underwear, all alone in the middle of Greenwich Village. How many others had trod the same path? Wolfe? O’Neill? Who else? Well, there was Bodenheim. Jesus. Anything but that.
He forced Bodenheim out of his mind, trying to concentrate on a plot, even a subject. The army? He’d always wanted to write a story about the army, really blast the bastards. Maybe satire; he had a flair for satire. Yeah, that was it – pit an oddball against the system, and rip the army to bits.
Now he could see himself in Andre’s. Casually mentioning the story he’d just finished. They probably wouldn’t believe him – he never paid any attention to those bums who were always talking about the great novels they were writing, the fabulous paintings they had in the works – but when he came in flashing the check, huge and beautiful from one of the slick magazines, they’d fall all over him. He could see it now: discussions of his work in the quarterlies, himself back home on vacation, parties in his honor, soft lips spilling secrets into his ear – he’d have it made.
The page was still blank, as he forced himself to concentrate…

--Hunter S. Thompson, Fire In The Nuts