I started a book two days ago. Just dove in and started writing. Most of the research is finished, heavens knows I’ve done enough procrastination, and at the urging of Jim Forbes I just opened a doc and started banging away.
In the old days the poets would begin by invoking the creative muses. Milton kicked off Paradise Lost with the usual call for help:
"Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top Of OREB, or of SINAI, didst inspire That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed, In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth Rose out of CHAOS: Or if SION Hill Delight thee more, and SILOA'S Brook that flow'd Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song"
John Barth, in the short novel, The Floating Opera, has his narrator, Todd Andrews, limber up his writing skills in a chapter entitled, “Tuning My Piano”.
Coleridge ate some opium. Hemingway pounded a bottle of rum. Me, I limber up with some good reading to get the old narrative voice locked in, put aside any mental overhangs and clutter, and then dive in at a steady forced march of 1,000 words a day with no re-reading or drafting. I am fully outlined, and I know enough not to stop to find a fact — marking holes with the old “TK” mark that means: “to come.”
So, a major project is underway. It feels good.
My husband just started a new book last night! What a coincidence. He had me read the first page, and it’s an awesome, Cormac McCarthy-esque mess. The writing is so different from his other works. The last book he finished (last summer) is very plot-driven, more about a story and a message while this one he’s just started seems to be so much more about language. It’s wonderful to see him so excited to sink his teeth into something new. Good luck w/ your new project!
I can only imagine the excitement and adrenalin you’re feeling right now … I bet you can’t wait to get home at night to get to the next part. I’m envious of such a project and all it brings to your life and wish you great success and enjoyment.
that’s it, blame me. I’ll kill a salmid inyour name Saturday morning on a stream that flows into the Columbia, that should motivate the muse. Write this book or the fish dies!.
Off to Walla Walla to a clone fest.
Be well and kep plugging. the surveyor historian I copied you on works for the National Bureau of Standards.
Jim
Go for it, bro. Standards are the language of commerce, the etiquette of machines. They are the end of the rainbow. A sufficiently stoked business person will bribe, extort, sleep with, and who know what else to establish a standard. Because it’s worth it. It’s a solid idea.