Clearly writing this novel, THE RENAISSANCE CLUB, has wiped the floor with me. I haven't worked on my new poetry manuscript, thoughtfully blogged, wittily tweeted, or amusingly updated in ... let's just say furlongs of seasons. I'm trying to pick myself up off the floor of a rigid and focused writing routine that produced a 416-page, carefully revised manuscript over a period of years. I'm trying to remember the carefree writer who could take a whole morning to envisage the newest incarnation of a poem or muse on growing up seaside in southern California -- a blog just for the fun of it.
Instead, I have become this driven person chained to a book. Don't get me wrong, I love my book and miss working on it, as I now have turned it over to A Higher Power (by that I mean the publishing professionals). I find everything in my writing trunk half-done, partly forgotten, a bedraggled muse adjusting her crown of brambles and berries and wildflowers as she climbs out of the box glaring at me.
But I did review a book -- stay tuned for a link when it goes live -- and I've read a few. You could say I'm resting in the steam and settle after the train has arrived at a station. Glad to still have my fingers on a keyboard, making some kind of word music. And to have written this today.
Don't you feel like writers should get an all-expenses-paid summer by the sea, every summer? Yeah. This sea. Mediterranean. Portovenere, where I might partially set my next story.
Labels: agent, art of waiting, Italy, novel writing, ocean
