Just Another Manic June Day
Outside my window that is. After a late, cool spring, the birds are in full choir mating and nesting and feeding. It's a great time to be a birder (which I am, sorta), but not a great time to write–not when crazed robins collide against the screen, and Baltimore Oriole males whistle unendingly from their perches like Bronx construction workers remarking on pretty girls in their summer dresses passing below. And then there's the resident pair of loons on the river; they never seem to sleep, but then again they have their single, furry chick to protect from eagles above and large pike below. I've come, like the survivor of Crane's "The Open Boat" (the cook, the oiler, the Captain and the journalist) to be the "interpreter" of their calls.
Am I complaining? No. This flush of intensely loud and green spring is what Minnesotans live for. Snow and cold weather has receded in our minds so much so that winter feels like it's from another lifetime--certainly not this one. But mid-June means it's time to buckle down to the writing desk.
After very nearly passing on the nonfiction hunting book project, I've reconsidered--thanks to a persistent editor. There are still questions to be answered about audience, but at some point one must stop cutting bait and cast the line. That will happen as soon as I clear the decks of a long-overdue YA novel for HarperCollins, the sequel to MEMORY BOY. Have had several false starts on it, but finally have it up and running. Must deliver on July 1, and feels like about 80 pages to go. That's about six pages a day for two weeks straight. No pressure (ha). But it doesn't have to be perfect--it just has to be done. And there's the take-away line if you're an aspiring fiction writer, or are struggling with your M.A. or Ph.D thesis. The goal is the full draft, and then you can revise. Besides, your editor or your thesis advisor needs something to do; the more they feel a part of the process, the better things will go for you and the project.
Literary miscellany: the summer fiction issue of the New Yorker is out, and always worth a look. Love the poem "Don't Do That" by Stephen Dunn. Some good short stories in there as well, including one by Jonathon Franzen that is set in St. Paul; it's an oddly compelling story, one that slowly darkens as it goes along.
My new YA novel SUPER STOCK ROOKIE had a quiet debut, but should pick up with help from a feature article in the summer VOYA magazine. The three "Motor Novels" (one more to go) will form a trilogy, which is its own unique literary matter. But the orioles are calling for more grape jelly, and I have six pages to write.
Over and out for today. . . .
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