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Maria Full of Grace
A strong character-driven, emotionally gripping story about a young "mule," or drug runner, whose poverty drives her to great risks. The strength of this movie is in its realism and tight dramatic focus. As one critic wrote in the New York Times, Stephen Holden: "Even when you're on the edge of your seat, it never sacrifices a calm, clear-sighted humanity for the sake of melodrama or cheap moralizing." No Hollywood cheap shots here! Maybe this is why it has subtitles ha ha. The beginning, setting up the situation of Maria's "ordinary world," might be a tad long, but I can think of no other weakness in this movie, and its ending is just right.
    

Patriots
Another good morning of rewriting, another 70 pages fixed to the new timeline. Best, new ideas for story moments are flooding the mind again. My enthusiasm for this book is rekindled.

This photo, by the way, reminds me of one taken when I was this age, in a white sailor suit (as is proper for a Navy brat), at attention, saluting. Ah, me. The climax of my novel, the "fight" and discussion between the warrior husband and the wife turned peacenik will be as complex as I can make it. Onward.
    
9/25/2004 11:07:40 AM | 0 comments

 
Ichiro: 2 hits yesterday, 249, 8 to tie, 9 games remaining
For the first time, Ichiro's hits to tie are less than his games remaining. He definitely has a real shot at breaking the record now. (The asterisk: he has only one game left in which to get 257 hits in the same number of games as Sisler.)

Should get more work on the novel today. Soon as I catch up, will get back to the libretto and I also have new work to do on the musical with Robin. And more prep work for school. Busy, busy. But I like being busy. I can't imagine retiring in the sense of retiring from writing. I might as well stop breathing as stop writing. If I can avoid turning into a vegetable, the activities will cease together.   
9/25/2004 04:13:28 AM | 0 comments

Friday, September 24, 2004  

Old times
This morning felt like old times, in a great writing groove, then off to get necessary errands done. Rewrote first 50 pages of the novel and the new timeline will work fine. Went to university and reserved my VCR for the days I show movies in class. To the publisher to see page design pages. I hated them! So did the publisher, fortunately. Far too glitzy. What is it about designers that they don't understand less is more? We sent her back to the drawing boards. However, our flier, designed by a monk at Mt. Angel Abbey, is fantastic! The publisher was there on a retreat and got it done. Always working, ha ha.

Campus was filled with students on orientation. Felt great to be among them! I am looking forward to getting into the new rhythm of university life, especially on my new schedule. Everything feels fresh. Onward.
    
9/24/2004 02:17:19 PM | 3 comments

Thursday, September 23, 2004  
Ichiro: 4 hits yesterday, 247, 10 to tie, 10 games remaining
Ichiro is a real contender again, riding a new hot streak. In fairness, it must be said that George Sisler, whose record he chases, played in an era when the season was 8 games fewer than now, which may put an asterisk beside Ichiro's considerable achievement if he sets a new record. He could get 10 hits in 2 days -- he's gotten 9 in the last two -- and put the matter to rest.

Meanwhile, the subconscious is working on my compressed timeline and loves it. Moreover, I now can end the story on the 4th of July, quite appropriate for a novel called Patriots. I am optimistic that this solves the problem I've been having but still need to go through the 170 pages I have and update them. But my attitude definitely has improved. Onward.   
9/23/2004 04:32:40 AM | 1 comments

Wednesday, September 22, 2004  
More thoughts on novel
The more I think about it, the more I believe I am starting my writing much too early in the timeline of the story. As originally conceived, the action takes place in about 14 months. When it began to drag, I tried to fix it by dividing the story into formal Parts. However, I think a more powerful solution is to tell the entire story in the last 4 or 5 months of the original timeline -- which also eliminates the Parts device. In other words, move the action forward by almost a year. I'll go over what I have and see if it works. It's a pretty easy fix if it does. Feeling good about looking into this -- been a frustrating number of weeks, trying to get back into the flow when the flow itself may be wrong. Onward.   
9/22/2004 04:02:02 PM | 0 comments

 
Patriots
I think one of the reasons I'm having trouble getting back into Patriots, my novel in progress, is that I still have a structural problem. I think I am beginning the story too soon chronologically, am trying to cover too much time. I'm looking at the pages I have, which I called Part One in my last structural revision, to see about kicking the action forward in time -- which gives me less time to make up as I continue. Something just doesn't feel right in the rhythm of the story. Better to deal with this now than later.   
9/22/2004 01:51:08 PM | 0 comments

 
Ichiro: 5 hits yesterday (!), 243, 14 to tie, 11 games left
Meanwhile, my syllabus is at the copy center. Still haven't done my film study guides. Moving ahead more slowly than I thought -- and also not back into the rhythm of the novel yet -- but that's okay, it's the time of year to focus on my new classs. I have my online class prep to do as well. Prep week is prep week.   
9/22/2004 01:07:35 AM | 1 comments

Tuesday, September 21, 2004  
Ichiro: 2 hits yesterday, 238, 19 to tie, 12 games remaining
  
9/21/2004 07:22:45 AM | 0 comments

Monday, September 20, 2004  
Music
For some reason, I took out the 5-string banjo last night for the first time in many months. It sounded good! Maybe I should pick it more regularly.

In the 60s and 70s, I never went anywhere without my guitar. It was an appendage. For most of those years I was with a folksinger, and we became standard "entertainment" at any party, dinner or gathering we attended. Then later, through the 80s, after we'd split up, I performed my tribute to Woody Guthrie with regularity, both formally and informally, in performing arts centers, theaters, schools, bars, picnics, camp grounds and private homes.

But in the 90s I put down my instruments and haven't played much since.

If I do pick them up regularly again (and these days the banjo interests me more than the guitar for some reason), I need to get rid of my performer's mentality and just do it for private, personal pleasure. Otherwise it begins to feel like work. That may be why I quit in the first place.

Change of subject. This is the week school begins for me with preparation. This morning, though, a trip to the publisher's to select my photo for the back cover of the anthology, a kind of decision I seldom have to make. After that, perhaps I'll work on the laptop in a coffee house for a change of scenery before returning to attack my new syllabus.

Onward.   
9/20/2004 08:10:30 AM | 0 comments

Sunday, September 19, 2004  

In Memoriam
About once a year, I write and direct a drama service for the First Unitarian Church here in Portland. This year my theme is "In Memoriam: Reflections on Grief and Thanksgiving," for the Nov. 14th service. Here is the script in the draft with which I enter rehearsal next month.
    
9/19/2004 11:35:17 AM | 1 comments

 

Back on track
Making an effort today to refocus on the novel draft, bringing it back front burner. It lost its place to the anthology through the summer. Now it's time to get back on track, novel first priority, libretto second.

Of course, this week I also have to prepare my university class, a revised syllabus and two film study guides to do. I'm actually eager for classes to start in order to begin the school year routine, which I'm changing from my past pattern. In good spirits to begin the new year.

Yesterday Ichiro got one hit, bringing his total to 236, 21 to tie. But he needs a spurt to make it, something like he had a few weeks ago with a string of multi-hit games.

UCLA and Notre Dame won in football, Portland State did better than expected, Oregon got trounced as expected. Most exciting game was Tennessee-Florida, the Tenn. kicker missing an extra point to tie late in the game, becoming the goat, then a minute later kicking a 50-yard field goal for the win, becoming the hero.
    
9/19/2004 06:02:33 AM | 0 comments

Saturday, September 18, 2004  
Weekend
Still "high" and full of energy from the trip to the coast. Delighted to have the anthology behind me -- the call from the publisher last night confirms that my role now is reduced to signing books once they are out. I can put it behind me. I think it's an important regional book -- a phone call with Barry Lopez last night finds him in agreement with me (and he's the best known writer in the book, although we also have two National Book Award nominees), he had only great things to say about Joe Bianco and the old Northwest magazine ("Joe gave writers the kind of freedom you expect at Harper's"). So I'm curious to see how it's received.

Last night Ichiro got 2 hits, bringing total to 235, 22 to tie. Bonds hit his 700th homer. The Red Sox won. Baseball is in the air. But college football, too, with the Oregon Ducks, embarrassed last week, playing at Oklahoma. They can get creamed or they can surprise everyone. Portland State travels to Fresno State, where they likely will get creamed. And UCLA goes to Washington. I rooted for the Bruins throughout my childhood and still do, my first alma mater after all, though Oregon-UCLA games are always bring out conflicting allegiances.

Today or soon I have to fix something else in the draft of Act I Varmints libretto. Mainly need to get back into the novel. I am very eager to finish a draft, probably less than a hundred pages to go. I should be able to do this before the new year.

John the composer has discovered Emma Goldman, another good subject for an opera. I already know a lot about her.

Rainy season beginning early but I don't seem to care for a change. In a good space since the coast. Hope I stay in it for a long while.

Going to write my new screenwriting column on teaching screenwriting, articulate a few things I've been thinking about. I think screenwriting is one of the more teachable writing forms we have, mainly because it is story-driven, which makes its rhetorical demands as practical as artistic -- and practical things are more easily taught than artistic things.

At any rate, up with lots of energy this morning. Onward.
  
9/18/2004 06:39:59 AM | 0 comments

Friday, September 17, 2004  
Anthology
A phone call from the publisher. All legal hoops now cleared. Design moving along. I meet with him Monday to select my photo for the back cover. As if it mattered ha ha. He also will show me the front cover photo of Mt. Hood. He hopes to go to press in a week or ten days.

He told me his friends are amazed at our progress -- especially since he's been talking about this project for five years! We did it, start to finish, in about four months by the time it's printed. That's hauling ass if I say so myself. Onward.   
9/17/2004 09:30:04 PM | 0 comments

 
Baseball
The Red Sox and Yankees always play a tough series -- and tonight the Red Sox came from behind to score 2 in the 9th and win. Meanwhile, Ichiro has 2 hits so far tonight. October, the Baseball Month, fast approaches.   
9/17/2004 09:28:49 PM | 0 comments

 
The Book of Daniel
I love and admire this novel by E.L. Doctorow.

It was the time of the Red Menace. The fear of Communists taking over the PTA and Community Chest affected the lives of ordinary people in ordinary towns. Anyone who knew anyone who was a Communist felt tainted. Everything that could be connected to the Communists took on taint. People who defended their civil liberties on principle. The First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Pablo Picasso, because he had attended the Communists' World Peace Congress in Paris and painted doves for peace. Doves. Peace. There was a new immigration control bill and alien deportation bill, and a control of American citizens abroad bill. And there was an internal security bill providing for concentration camps for anyone who might be expected to commit espionage. And there were now people who couldn't get passports, and there were now people who couldn't find jobs, and there were now people jailed for contempt, and there were now people who couldn't find Mark Twain in the library because the Russians liked him and he was a best seller over there.

Sailor Jack's
Home from a couple days at the coast, hiding out in one of our regular spots, the Sailor Jack Motel. Medicine! I return with a battery charge, post-anthology energy, ready for fall (mentally).

Meanwhile, lots of new work to do for school and the UU show.

In absence, Ichiro stats: 233 hits, 24 to tie. No longer looks like a sure thing.

Onward! Or, Good to be home.
    
9/17/2004 01:59:09 AM | 0 comments

Tuesday, September 14, 2004  
Ichiro hitless yesterday
  
9/14/2004 02:25:01 AM | 0 comments

Monday, September 13, 2004  
Ups & downs
It never fails to happen: collapse, physical and psychological, at the end of a project, and the larger the project, the more severe the collapse. Some of it is simply exhaustion. But the more interesting aspects are psychological, especially the self-doubt that asks, Well, this is done -- but was it worth it? One gets so immersed in the work that context and comparison are lost; when suddenly the work is done, one looks up, lost for a moment, Where am I?, and is surrounded by everything that's been ignored for weeks, months -- and the work no longer exists in the isolation of an imagination but in the world at large, where it will be compared to other things. Will it survive? Will it find an audience? One never knows.

So we move on. We begin another project. What else is new?   
9/13/2004 02:15:57 AM | 0 comments

Sunday, September 12, 2004  
Ichiro: 2 hits today, 231, 26 to tie
  
9/12/2004 05:44:55 PM | 0 comments

 

Cats & Dogs

Making the email rounds ... apparently by anonymous:

EXCERPTS FROM A DOG'S DAILY DAIRY:

8:00 a.m. Oh, boy! Dog food! My favorite!
9:30 a.m. Oh, boy! A car ride! My favorite!
9:40 a.m. Oh, boy! A walk! My favorite!
10:30 a.m. Oh, boy! Getting rubbed and petted! My favorite!
11:30 a.m. Oh, boy! Dog food! My favorite!
Noon- Oh, boy! The kids! My favorite!
1:00 p.m. Oh, boy! The yard! My favorite!
4:00 p.m. Oh, boy! To the park! My favorite!
5:00 pm. Oh, boy! Dog food! My favorite!
5:30 p.m. Oh, boy! Pretty Mums! My favorite!
6:00 p.m. Oh, boy! Playing ball! My favorite!
6:30 a.m. Oh, boy! Watching TV with my master! My favorite!
8:30 p.m Oh, boy! Sleeping in master's bed! My favorite!

EXCERPTS FROM A CAT'S DAILY DIARY:

Day 183 of My Captivity: My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre
little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while I am
forced to eat dry cereal. The only thing that keeps me going is the
hope of escape, and the mild satisfaction I get from ruining the
occasional piece of furniture. Tomorrow I may eat another houseplant.
Today my attempt to kill my captors by weaving around their feet while
they were walking almost succeeded; must try this at the top of the
stairs. In an attempt to disgust and repulse these vile oppressors, I
once again induced myself to vomit on their favorite chair, must try
this on their bed. Decapitated a mouse and brought them the headless
body, in an attempt to make them aware of what I am capable of, and to
try to strike fear into their hearts. They only cooed and condescended
about what a good little cat I was. Hmmm, not working according to
plan. There was some sort of gathering of their accomplices. I was
placed in solitary confinement throughout the event. However, I could
hear the noise and smell the food. More importantly, I overheard that
my confinement was due to my power of 'allergies.' Must learn what
this is and how to use it to my advantage. I am convinced the other
captives are flunkies and maybe snitches. The dog is routinely
released and seems more than happy to return. He is obviously a
half-wit. The bird, on the other hand, has to be an informant; he
speaks with them regularly. I am certain he reports my every move. Due
to his current placement in the high metal room, his safety is
assured. But I can wait; it is only a matter of time .    
9/12/2004 08:12:55 AM | 0 comments

 
Back to work
A genuine day off yesterday, barely getting to the computer. Watching a lot of college football. Now it's time to draft out the script for the Nov. drama at the Unitarian church since I have auditions next month. And soon time to prepare my fall class.

Meanwhile, Ichiro hitless in last two games.   
9/12/2004 07:56:20 AM | 0 comments

Saturday, September 11, 2004  
Ta da!
Just now emailed the anthology manuscript to the designer. It is out of the house! Later this morning, after sleep, I need to print a hard copy and mail that off. It's nice to feel "finished" with it.

Meanwhile I feel like I'm coming down with a cold, though it may just be the physical exhaustion that normally follows mental exhaustion. Taking lots of vitamin C nonetheless and won't do much today after printing except watch football on the tube and maybe read. Onward.   
9/11/2004 03:06:56 AM | 0 comments

Friday, September 10, 2004  

The Quiet American
Movie on cable this morning and I'm rewatching. A favorite novel and, unlike the original film, a good faithful screen version of it. I'll never forget my first reading of the novel in the late 60s during Vietnam. I naively thought, How could the war happen with this novel out there predicting the disaster and precisely why? I was young, I still thought literature actually had power to change things -- Uncle Tom's Cabin and all that. I didn't yet know that a primary condition of being human was each generation's need to reinvent the wheel. I didn't yet know that we learn very little from history -- and less from art. Just about everything worth knowing about being human is in Homer, for Christ's sake!

At any rate, a superb film, I can't miss it.    
9/10/2004 09:58:48 AM | 0 comments

 
What people are reading
The most popular items in my literary archive this week:

• Bucking the Monkey, an essay, 39.
• The First Stoplight in Wallowa County, a short story, 32.
• Threesomes, Foursomes and the Like, a short story, 24.
• Manhood, a screenplay, 22.
• Birthing Little Richard, an essay, 21.

Shifting gears
Okay, today is the time to start shifting gears, away from the anthology and back to the novel and libretto. If all goes well, I'll pass on the anthology manuscript to the designer tonight or tomorrow morning. Of course, the week of the 20th I have to focus on school preparation but in the immediate weeks ahead, I should be able to get a lot done on my two major projects now. I should finish a draft to each this fall. With the new year, then, I expect to start the senior road trip story I'm eager to get to. And also begin research on the next libretto, historically based, which indeed will take some research.

I'm also changing the rhythm of the teaching week this term. In the past, I always had papers due on Thursday and looked at them over the weekend, often spilling into Monday. This term I'm going to try making them due Tuesday, reading them Wednesday, and returning them Thursday -- which would free up my weekend and week start. In other words, try to compress the teaching week to Tues, Wed, Thur. Studying two movies this term, A Beautiful Mind and The Hours. I need to write a study guide for each.

So fall and the school year are fast upon us. A break to the coast next week, where I can get a little writing and a lot of relaxation in, and Sketch can race in the water and sand and dig his little heart out. Onward.
    
9/10/2004 07:35:43 AM | 0 comments

 
Ichiro: 2 hits yesterday, 229, 28 to tie
  
9/10/2004 07:00:23 AM | 0 comments

Thursday, September 09, 2004  
One more day
The publisher's lawyer still had the manuscript this morning -- so I pick it up late tomorrow afternoon, fix some typos, and get it to the designer tomorrow night or Saturday morning. At last! Initial feedback and reaction to the book are very positive. The publisher is putting together quite a TV, radio, bookstore blitz, that yours truly will have to do, which is small doses can be fun -- for a while. Fortunately, this is a regional book with a regional market. I can stay close to home, in other words. The author as huckster is a relatively recent reality of which I don't improve.   
9/9/2004 07:00:53 PM | 0 comments

 
New short film
A director in Brazil is adapting my short play Guardian of the Light into a film. Read the screenplay in Portuguese.   
9/9/2004 06:52:53 PM | 0 comments

 
Good old days
I don't know where the hell I got the idea that the tavern was sending out Nicole Kidman to interview me. At any rate, had a very pleasant afternoon with the two guys they did send out, talking about Portland in the 80s, which began to sound like a Golden Age.   
9/9/2004 03:20:40 PM | 0 comments

 
Wrapping up
Meet with Joe this morning, get typos and other tweaks in the manuscript to fix before sending on. Later meet with the tavern historian. A relatively busy but mellow day by the looks of it. Also get back cover photo taken, I think. I should be able to get everything to the designer tomorrow, then, putting the anthology officially out of my hands. I look forward to this moment. Then, back to the novel, back to the libretto, and a rush to get together my next Unitarian minidrama so I can cast it next month and go into rehearsals for the Nov. performance. In two weeks, time to focus on school.   
9/9/2004 04:52:56 AM | 0 comments

 

Varmints
Made some minor additions to Act I libretto, stuff that needs to be set up for Act II. Energy to get back to work on this. Be nice to finish a draft within a month or so! Onward.
    
9/9/2004 04:06:12 AM | 1 comments

Wednesday, September 08, 2004  
Ichiro: 1 hit today, 227, 30 to tie
  
9/8/2004 10:54:10 PM | 0 comments

 
A Writer's Epitaph
Unread in life
Ignored at death
He's finally taken
His last breath
(Burma Shave
Won't help him now)

--Charles Deemer   
9/8/2004 10:46:15 PM | 0 comments

 
Miss Saigon
I don't think I've seen a higher quality touring show. Unfortunately, the music just doesn't grab me -- it strikes me as prosaic when I'm wanting lyrical poetry. There's no accounting for taste. (It also occurred to me, maybe this is like the Classics Comic Book version of Moby Dick: story's there, characters are there, but the soul is missing.)   
9/8/2004 10:42:16 PM | 1 comments

 
Update
Well, the blogger difficulty appears remedied. At any rate, busy day tomorrow: first, a meeting with publisher, hopefully last on the archive before passing it on to the designer; and after that, a curious meeting with the historian of a local tavern (!), who wants to interview me about the 80s when I was a fixture in this particular tavern. How many taverns have historians!? We exchanged some emails in the past couple months, I told the usual stories, and now she wants to meet face-to-face for a final interview. I'm curious enough to show up.   
9/8/2004 03:57:38 PM | 2 comments

 
Blogger trouble
Having trouble posting.   
9/8/2004 02:36:29 PM | 0 comments

 
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
No mental energy today. Lawn work! Try to wake up.   
9/8/2004 01:34:36 PM | 0 comments

 

Miss Saigon
Box seats tonight. Looking forward to it. Otherwise, in a general post-anthology funk or something.    
9/8/2004 01:29:22 PM | 0 comments

Tuesday, September 07, 2004  
Ichiro: 2 hits yesterday, 226, 31 to tie
To the University this morning to take care of some things, a meeting with publisher if necessary, this afternoon dedicated to lawn and house chores. Rereading The Book of Daniel, an extraordinary novel.   
9/7/2004 07:28:20 AM | 0 comments

Monday, September 06, 2004  
Labor Day & the Wobblies
Looking for some Labor Day reading? Check out my tribute to the Wobblies, which was written for a Labor Day presentation at the Unitarian Church about five years ago.   
9/6/2004 08:16:08 AM | 0 comments

Sunday, September 05, 2004  
Ichiro: 1 hit today, 224, 33 to tie
  
9/5/2004 08:35:30 PM | 0 comments

 

Before Sunset
What a refreshing movie! Shows how interesting people saying interesting things can be as engaging as "bigger" drama. Hits the bullseye on many male-female dynamics. It's been in town a while here, yet the movie was very full on a Sunday afternoon. The critics also loved it:

"...the movie's prodigious verbiage is also enthralling, precisely because of its casual disregard for the usual imperatives of screenwriting." NY Times

"...the art of conversation has rarely been so acute, honest and revealing." Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"...one of the most wildly romantic movies in ages." Hollywood Reporter    
9/5/2004 08:32:31 PM | 0 comments

 

Continuity
Breakfast today at Nobby's, where I've been having breakfast for over a quarter century, served by the same waitress. This, except for writing, is the greatest continuity in my life.

I first came to Portland in 1967 but didn't frequent Nobby's then. I fled graduate school with a soul mate, I thought (until she decided a decade later that her own soul mate would be of the same sex), and settled into a cheap apartment in Portland to "become a writer." Later we moved into a wooded cottage on the outskirts of Multnomah Village, an area of the city that hasn't changed much, which can't be said about many places. I started publishing in literary magazines. And the next year we returned to grad school.

In a sense, then, living only a few miles from where my real writing roots are, I feel like I've come full circle. When I returned to Portland for good in the late 1970s, I moved into Nobby's neighborhood, and it became one of my homes away from home. Continuity. I haven't had much in my life.
    
9/5/2004 11:14:41 AM | 0 comments

 

LSU 22, Oregon State 21
Sports fans in Oregon are Ducks or Beavers. I'm a Duck, having rec'd my MFA at the University of Oregon. However, yesterday I was rooting for Oregon State's Beavers to upset Louisiana State. They would have -- had their place kicker not missed an incredible 3 extra points. Never saw a team beat itself so badly. Soon the Ducks get to play Oklahoma. Onward.
    
9/5/2004 04:27:42 AM | 0 comments

 
Ichiro: 5 hits yesterday (!), 223, 34 to tie
  
9/5/2004 04:15:18 AM | 0 comments

 
Back cover
Working on back cover text for the anthology. Ideas ...

The symptoms of Oregon Fever:

Thought-provoking…
“To save this planet, to seek a viable environment for mankind, has become our cause celebre. It has become a social, a political, and an economic issue of the first magnitude.”
Barry Lopez, “Let’s Clear the Air…”

Controversial…
“If a magazine starts – we kill it. If a theater group struggles up out of the mud – we softly muffle it to death under pillows of leaden silence. The plain fact is that we don't want anything around that might stir up the mush.”
Don Berry, “Kultur in Apathyville”

Regional…
“There is a myth, which residents of the Pacific Northwest should arrange to have block-pted in the sky above all the rest of this country, that winter out here is one long sopping downpour.”
Ivan Doig, “Winter Surf”

Humorous…
“Well, the first thing I would do is install enormous rolls of barbed wire all around the state."
Rick Rubin, “My Gubernator Platform”
  
9/5/2004 04:02:09 AM | 0 comments

Saturday, September 04, 2004  
Exhaustion
I have an early morning meeting with the anthology publisher, at which I deliver the manuscript. So I've delivered two contracted books this summer, both ahead of deadline. I think I'm exhausted ha ha.

The downside of this: school starts soon! I haven't had my summer vacation yet. I plan to take a bit of it over the next two weeks. This means I won't finish the novel draft before school starts but that's fine. Now the deadline is finish the draft this fall, the final draft over Christmas vacation, and start the new one in January. For the next two weeks, though, into vacation mode, which for me is to write for one or two hours in the morning, then putter and brood and read and do chores for the rest of the day.

I'm not used to such a busy summer. Onward.   
9/4/2004 06:34:07 AM | 0 comments

Friday, September 03, 2004  
Ichiro: 1 hit today, 218, 39 to tie
  
9/3/2004 08:03:59 PM | 0 comments

 
Finito?
Have the anthology together and printed. Will give to publisher tomorrow morning over coffee. Hopefully, my work is done.   
9/3/2004 08:00:20 PM | 0 comments

 
Pacing the floor
Impatiently waiting to receive the last story from the typist, which was supposed to be done this morning. Apparently not. I should go out to lunch or otherwise pass the time in some diversionary activity.   
9/3/2004 11:55:20 AM | 0 comments

 

Morse play in October
First gig on its tour is in Springfield, Oct. 15. I expect to be there.

Meanwhile, rec'd another story from the typist, only one more to go, which she plans to do this morning. If so, I should be able to finish this evening, print and peruse over the weekend, and deliver a manuscript to Joe on Monday, Labor Day (he likes to work on this holiday, labor after all, as do I).

This done, I need some vacation time before classes start! Man, I delivered two book manuscripts this summer. I'm not ready to teach yet.
    
9/3/2004 03:27:34 AM | 0 comments

Thursday, September 02, 2004  
Ichiro 3 hits today, 217 total, 40 to go
  
9/2/2004 09:42:03 PM | 0 comments

 
Labor Day Weekend
Looking like I might be able to wrap up the anthology over the weekend. Waiting for last two stories from the typist. Incorporate them, proof, and do a print out for a last look-through, then pass on to Joe for approval. Looking good.   
9/2/2004 03:39:45 PM | 0 comments

Wednesday, September 01, 2004  

Ichiro!
The Mariners are having a terrible year -- but Ichiro Suzuki is on a hitting pace that will result in a new major league record for hits in a season. With 214 hits through Wednesday night, Suzuki is pursuing George Sisler's major league record of 257 hits in a season, accomplished in 1920 with the St. Louis Browns. The Mariners have 30 games left, and Ichiro needs 43 hits to tie, 44 to break, the record -- and if he keeps on his hits-per-game average for the season so far, he'll make it.
    
9/1/2004 09:15:37 PM | 0 comments

 
Progress
Making a lot of progress on the anthology today. Now I am waiting for the final three stories from the typist.

Meanwhile John sent some musical ideas for Varmints but they sounded wrong to me, something that belonged in an uplifting musical, not a dark opera about greed. Maybe I heard it wrong or maybe we have different notions of where we are going. We'll find out! John is brilliant enough to write anything he wants -- I just hope we're on the same page.   
9/1/2004 02:40:26 PM | 0 comments

 
New essay
My essay from Northwest about minor league baseball is now online in my archives: The Last Slow Dance.   
9/1/2004 10:08:32 AM | 0 comments

 
Anthology
Focusing on the book this week, hoping to wrap it up over the weekend and then passing it on to the copy editor and designer early next week. I have a good shot of doing just this. Only 4 more stories to drop in. Onward.   
9/1/2004 09:58:57 AM | 0 comments