I know that many of you are dying to know how things are going with the new book. So I thought I’d give you an update on where it stands.

But first, I should invoke my muse. The same which has sustained me – when no dog was present in the house – since I read Eliot’s Ash Wednesday in college.

The Lady is withdrawn
In a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown.
Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.
There is no life in them. As I am forgotten
And would be forgotten, so I would forget
Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. And God said
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only
The wind will listen.

I started the complete rewrite — which I am, for abject lack of a better name, calling the 3rd Draft — back in the 1st week of August. So I’ve been working on it about 3 weeks. Well, I was traveling a lot for a while there, so let’s call it 2 working weeks. I’ve written about a dozen sections, or scenes. Small chapters. Not quite 50 pages. But it’s going to be a small book, a novella of maybe 250 MS Word pages. So this rewrite could be 20% done already. I’ve got that going for me, which is nice. I can’t wait to get it done; done being prima facie done to a point of surpassing excellence. Perfectionist that I am.

I have a new title. And I think it’s really good.

— Well, what is it, Buttlicker?

I can’t tell ya. Wouldn’t be prudent. Might not be good for the country. Bad mojo. I will tell you that it’s based on something secret my Grandmother said — maybe more than once, and maybe my Mother has said it too — about how fleeting life is, and how all we have is now, today, in which to live and love each other. There is no guarantee, for any one of us, that we will see another day. The moment, and the memory of which it’s made, is the theme of the book, and of the title.

I’m finding that the tone of the story is darker than it was in earlier drafts, far darker than when I undertook the project. Above, I mentioned the muse and the dogs, meaning dogs do not like this muse. She is strigine, and nocturnal. No fault of mine.

The story is in first person now. This has its limitations, no doubt. But what I’m finding is that the voice is more stable. When I was writing in 3rd person omniscient, I had more flexibility in terms of perspective, but the voice was all over the friggin road.

The main problem with first person is how to get into evidence certain things that the narrator can’t know; for example, reflections of someone else, that were never revealed to him. Well, I took a clue from the opening chapters of Gaviota by Erik O’Dowd, and wrote a series of journal entries, written by that 3rd party and revealed in the possession of the narrator. In other words, my guy has his uncle’s journal. That’s how he knows things. I think it’s working pretty well. Today I wrote a scene in which the narrator shares one of his uncle’s poems. Which means I get to broaden the application of my abilities in that direction.

I got my old HP printer out of mothballs and set it up, so I can start printing things out. I have a newer Canon, but that sucker sucks ink like it’s going out of style. It’s a good printer, but for a bigger job I think the old machine is a little more thrifty.

More on the muse.

The silent sister veiled in white and blue
Between the yews, behind the garden god,
Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke no word

But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down
Redeem the time, redeem the dream
The token of the word unheard, unspoken

Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew

And after this our exile

I have been spending a lot of time in solitude since I got back from my trip two weeks ago. Can you tell? About 21 hours a day I’m completely alone, in my home office, on my bike, out walking. About 2 hours a day I’m in cafes, alone with my laptop but not alone. For about 1 hour I poke my head out like an agoraphobic groundhog and meet with other people, stop and see my folks, and walk the family dog.

I believe this is what they call Isolating, but I’m not sure. It might just be solitude. Most of the time I relish this hermitage I’ve created for myself. Sometimes I sit here in my study and feel like an solo astronaut far out in space. Or like a man sailing around the world alone on a 40 foot sloop. There’s a cool word. Sloop. Say it out loud with me, gentle reader. Give it a good Whitmanesque Yawp!

Sloop! Sloop! Sloop!

For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do

Ah yes, very amusing. I have found some interesting and literate thoughts on the matter:

Writers maybe disreputable, incorrigible, early to decay or late to bloom, but they dare to go it alone.

That’s John Updike. Almost romantic, isn’t it? I have that on my desktop wallpaper. Stiff upper lip.

Writing a book is a very lonely business. You are totally cut off from the rest of the world, submerged in your obsessions and memories.

That’s Mario Vargas Llosa. I haven’t read him. Peruvian is all I know. But yeah, that’s about what it feels like, too true. And I think another word for submerged is drowning.

“When we leave people on their own, we are delivering them into the hands of a ruthless taskmaster from whose bondage there is no escape. The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. That’s Eric Hoffer.

Remember, we’re all in this alone.

Lilly Tomlin. That’s my screensaver. I think it’s damn funny. So let’s end it on another funny note, for all my fellow writers, poets, painters, sculptors, and composers. This, again, is Hoffer:

“What are we when we are alone? Some, when they are alone, cease to exist.”