Thursday update

I'm having a good week.

I did a little race yesterday, the first of three; it was very warm and on that count mercifully brief, but highly enjoyable. As I said on my other blog, I am very glad to break a streak of not making it to the start line of races I've been looking forward to!

I am just now printing out a new draft of the style book; there are some holes here and there, it needs not just another copy-edit but still some bits and bobs of new writing as well as perhaps a longer tranche of pages about Wittgenstein's Nephew which I am going to sit down with shortly (like in about ten minutes) and reread.

A new structure and rationale have emerged in this iteration of the book, and I like it quite a bit: actually I must confess that I am experiencing the possibly deluded but still desirable conviction of this being the best book I have ever written! (Also, perhaps not coincidentally, the shortest?)

(Really of course one feels the best books are the as-yet-unwritten ones, so it is precious to have this feeling however fleetingly about a book that is mostly in existence already!)

On the basis of literally three words that need filling in (there is a noticeable lack of proportion here between projected effort and potential payoff!), I have realized that another thing I really must do in the next few days is reread Gravity's Rainbow, which curiously I have not read since high school (c. 1987?). It is not available on Kindle, but I have just called the very good local bookstore and they have a copy; they have pulled it from the shelf, in the event of the slightly unlikely chance of someone else purchasing it in the meantime, and I will walk over there in the early evening once it's a bit cooler to pick it up. (Could ride my bicycle, but there are too many cars out there!)

Got a good email from my agent yesterday, full of enthusiasm for BOMH (really it is now called The Magic Circle) and with a few thoughtful and very constructive notes for revision. I'd like another pass through it in any case, as I think there are some things to do with storytelling and pacing that could be stronger, but it sounds as though she'd like to send it out shortly after Labor Day, which is exciting.

So let's say another week or so on style, and I think I can be more or less done with that manuscript by next Friday (some new quotations I can get references for via Amazon's useful "Search inside this book" feature, but a few will need New York library access - I will request everything I need before I am physically back there so that I can finish it up on the Thursday and Friday before the Labor Day weekend, there are few things more frustrating than being prevented from filling in final details on a book manuscript because of holiday library hours and delays with BorrowDirect deliveries - it is a situation I have often experienced!). Then another week or ten days for a good pass back through BOMH, and I should be able to send both books back to Kathy before school starts.

Have had some very good light reading this week also, but that report will have to await a more leisurely moment, I have work to do! I like the feeling that things are happening...