[...] even at the post office he had to deal with the travails of other writers. Joe Links (not his real name), a man he worked alongside, had been trying to write for years. A short, wiry man with small, intense eyes, he had the kind of attitude toward writing that Hank did his best to avoid: he wanted money. Links had written a novel that publishers kept sending back. Hank told Links that he should write out of his own life experiences, forgetting whether or not his prose would earn him money. "I told him a couple of times to hit the road. . .but he lacked the nerve and I gave up trying."