I don’t know…
…where my glasses are. I lose them every time I take a break. It’s 7:47 A.M and within the hour I’ll have completed the seventh draft (the last one before the re-read and re-read sessions begin…soon. There will be no more new material, the story is set in stone, may need final tweaks and re-writes during the 8th draft , but still should be done by the end of this month and released in hardcover) of my novel (yes, I can truly say this is a novel)…
More Adventures of a Dying Young Man.
A bit ago the protagonist was in the bunker and the story was still working itself out, and like the sixth draft there was once again only 687 words left. Huh…
I asked myself, how did this happen? The same word count. The same section and once again…Stuck. Huh?
It’s just weird because writing is weird and so before the real morning when people are puffing around I walked to the lake. The first white layer of snow covered the ground. It was nice and alive. The last of the summer was contained in the leafs at the top of the trees that were shining a fire of red under the new day sun. No gloves and wild hair wearing an old war torn pea coat…
“And so what” I said as I skipped a hat-full of stones upon the sharp waves that have a job to do and move the land and… where did that come from?
A hunter’s gun fired. I closed my eyes looking at Pigeon hill.
It was there and I asked myself,
“How many hours did I work on this damn single project?”
The water said…
“You can’t think about that boy.”
I tried and did stop thinking about that and I was back at the desk and who shoots in the city? There’s all these questions I constantly wonder about but…
I’m still learning. Two screens like mission control and lights can be turned off by now and I can even think about relaxing soon. But what comes next? I have to get better and learn how to paint and play new songs and speak in a new language. I have to take some time off I know that…
but…
I think about the dead ends and the days that will come and go and maybe nobody will like the book when its bound and pretty and sold, and my words and my book, and I like it and that’s something better than…. “hey, that’s a real cool book.” Better than words from any So & So who might think about how much better each sentence could be if…
And I look at the books on my shelves, old words and most written by dead people…
The On Native Grounds, the How to Read and Why, the Shelley’s Poetry and Prose, the Beat Book, the Bill Clinton My Life, the Anthology of Children’s Literature and the One Hundred Years of Solitude, the Thought as a System, the Lord of the Flies, the Brief Handbook for Writers and the Good Blond and Others, the Basic Writings by Martin Heidegger and Naked Lunch and Infinite Jest. The Jungle and The Almanac for Music Lovers, The Stranger, The Myth, The Fall and The Plague, A Happy Death and those books that are like the Heart of Darkness and The Sun Also Rises…all one in the same, and The Corrections and A Tale of Two Cities, The Book of Hotel New Hampshire and The Adventures of Augie March…
I think about books, and there’s so many more and the list would get boring for most of the people I know. I could do this forever and I probably will even if I shouldn’t. There’s so many books and the time that went into them and still I can’t wait to read more and learn more about writing and art and life and live life and see if my book can age with grace like those old books who are really those old friends of mine who sit and wait with pages made of paper glowing like a star in the night, those books resting on even older wood shelves that were built into the wall before any of us were even born yet.
Maybe I’m only talking about life itself but…
I wonder if I’m on the wrong path, or if my life and my time, my generation and my peers, my books and my words; I truly do wonder if every one of us who is fortunate enough to be alive can age with the greatness that’s held like the fire of the red burning leafs that still no matter what put up a fight, or like the last sunflower on my porch that’s still as yellow as the first day it opened its eyes…
Can it? Will they? No…
It doesn’t matter…
Almost three years later and now this…
One Hundred and Twelve Thousand Words and…
What did I learn?
That’s up to…no.
I think I’ll go for another walk…
Thank you for reading.
Adventures In American Writing 