Remember the end of Back to the Future?

Sure, as Sally Struthers would say, we all do. Mr. Fusion, Doc Brown dressed like the Blade Runner version of Ronald McDonald, and the natural beauty of a DeLorean taking flight.

But the part of the last sequence of BTTF that always stuck with me was a minute before that. Track-suited auto-detailer Biff comes lumbering into the house carrying a cardboard box. "Mr. McFly, this just arrived!" he cries unrealistically happily for a man who, seconds before, was just starting a second coat of wax.

The box is opened and we see a stack of books. It's copies of George McFly's first novel - A Match Made in Space - featuring on the cover a radiation-suited "Darth Vader" from planet Vulcan apparently about to crack together the skulls of a pair of mannequin-looking teenagers who may or may not be wearing pajamas.

George grabs the top copy and hands it to Michael J. Fox. "See, like I always told you," George says, "if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything."

It's mostly a throwaway moment that simply tells us that in addition to playing tennis on Saturday mornings, George McFly has become a successful writer in this more upbeat and materialistic version of 1985. But for as quick as it is, it stuck with me.

Even as a kid, I imagined what that would feel like. Not traveling through time, but having something so magnificent and permanent as a book you wrote yourself just show up at your house one day.

I've gotten to play that scene out several times now, and it never gets old. However long it look, however much frustration you felt along the journey of writing this thing, that moment where you crack open that box makes it all worth it.

I certainly hope I never reach the point where that moment doesn't light me up. And I hope that I'll always appreciate it.

And think about how cool it is that this thing in this box will be out in the world for anybody to read.

And think about how rare it is in life to have such a satisfying payoff moment for so much hard work.

And, naturally, think about the end of Back to the Future.