Fall

Happy fall, if that's what's happening near you. We are finally having some brisk mornings in the Bay Area. Fall is my favorite. Give me a crunchy leaf.

Work continues. I think I'm getting close to having a full actual thing one might call an actual manuscript. One thing I'm noticing is that as I move the recent pieces from the to-do pile to the finished one, I am aware that I am ever-so-slightly losing confidence in the early pieces that have been in the done pile for the longest. It is in this way, I'm sure, that writers end up revising their work unto its or their death. But in my defense, I feel like I'm getting better at this through this process, and so I want to take yet another crack at those. But more accurately, I think what's happening is that the book as a whole is coming into clearer focus, and not all of the pieces serve what I think it's becoming.

I'll admit that in the beginning I might have been throwing anything against the wall just to see if this idea would work. And it's become much bigger in scope than I first envisioned. I can be so dang precious about things written, though. It's hard to kill your darlings, it's just how it is. I want them all to be strong written pieces, of course, but I want them all to contribute. The reader should, I hope, be able to see why each piece made the cut.

I do think a lot of these questions will be answered when I begin the enormous task of putting them all in order. That's going to be tough. But it's going to feel great to get to that point, I won't lie. I'm already dreaming of the day.