Now, I’m not speaking about books dealing with the aesthetics of the task, or with essays about the craft and critical analysis of examples of it—and we have several very fine volumes in that vein (Charles Baxter’s Burning Down the House and John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction come to mind)—no, I’m talking about straight how-to books, most of which claimed to offer shortcut advice, practical instructions on “writing your say the genre,” and even in some cases “secrets” of the novelist’s or story writer’s or poet’s trade. That day, with Delores, I stood among the titles, amazed. Stack upon stack of them.

“These sell really well,” she told me. “You wouldn’t believe how many people want to be writers out there.”

I said, “Damn.” That was what came out of me. We were looking at 50 different titles—a lot. More than I would’ve believed existed. And in the next moment, she offered me $10,000 to write one. “Really,” she said. “These kinds of books sell better than the fiction books.”

“Well,” I said. “Lordy.” I picked one up and put it down, picked up another and turned it in my hand and put it down. “Lordy.”

“Ten thousand dollars,” she said. “And I’ve heard you lecture. You could knock one of these off in a few days, I’ll bet.”

I was not—am not—in a position to take that amount of money lightly when it is offered to me, even for something I would never have thought of unless it came to me in this fashion. I have a family to support, children in college. So for an instant I was speechless. She stared, quietly waiting for my answer.

“You’re serious,” I got out at last.

“Absolutely.”

“Well,” I said, stalling for time. I was appalled. I’d forgotten the discomfort of the new shoes. “I’m—well, I’m working on this novel, you know. And I can’t imagine when I’d have the time to do it.”

“If you ever get some time—I mean it. Give me a call.”

“Um,” I said. And I felt myself deciding to go ahead and express something of my astonishment. “You know, I’m not really much in favor of this kind of thing. I had a conversation with a woman a year or so ago about her writing, and I asked what she was reading. Turns out that all her reading was in how-to books about writing her novel. She said she’d read them all, that they seemed to have been written for her, and her novel.”

“See?” Delores said. “And how was her writing?”

“It read as though it had been composed by one of those electronic calculators. An adding machine.”

Delores smiled. “Well, they do sell well, these books. And if you ever want to write one, let me know.”

I’d completely forgotten about the shoes.

Take a cursory look online. Amazon.com lists 4,470 titles under the heading of How to Write a Book. There, mixed with titles like How to Write a Chick Lit Novel and How to Write and Sell Your Novel are titles like How to Manage Your Home Remodel. Of course it’s the how to phrase that makes the listing what it is and where it is, but in fact, in terms of the expectations and the implied message, these books belong together, and according to the prevailing wisdom of our time, constructing a novel or a poem or a play is no different than building a back deck on your house.