The mud sucks my knees; during the last month I have made no real progress toward wrapping up the 2nd draft of the novel. This particular project began as a way to practice the craft while taking a break from an earlier, failing novel project that I was too in love with to simply abandon. My plan was to crank out this second novel in just three months, but as I enter into October I must remember that it has been nearly a year since I began.
But I am convinced that the final 60 pages–the climax, the resolution–must now be guided to entwine more cohesively than any of the previous chapters, and my brain is no longer nimble enough for the necessary artistry.
So I have committed to spend my writing hours of the next seven days entirely on poems. New poems, or revisions of half-started poems. Indeed, I have drafted one tonight (“The Ghosts’ Chairs”) that falls apart in six parts; I hope to post it here if only to testify of my commitment to keep on writing. And I must keep on writing, or I will not keep on at all. I have always been the sort of personality that tends to adopt little private chants that cycle through my head when confounded; the current mantra is, simply, “One way out.”
