Although months go by without writing on this website journal, I do write every morning in a journal. These entries are more personal and private than what I post here. I wanted to share one of these with you. Here’s one I wrote this morning.
My editor tells me that the publication date for my next novel will be March of 2023. Right now I feel as if that will be my last novel. I will be seventy in March 2023. I know the stories of authors that keep writing until the end and I’m sure I will keep on writing, at least here in these pages, because this daily writing is part of me now. But my mental abilities are diminishing, my stamina is a lot less then when when I wrote Marcelo – waking up at 4:00 A.M. before catching the train to MassHousing. I don’t know if I have it in me to work at the craft of creating for the long periods of time required to write a good novel. I know that if the inner call for another novel comes, I will answer it. But, I’ll be okay if the call doesn’t come. Maybe there are other tasks assigned to me. But if the stirring comes like a faint whispering that is followed with images and characters and questions and mysteries and all that constitutes the enthusiasm, the urging, of creating – I hope that I find the way to do it differently. I hope I can do it the way an old man goes to his basement to work on the bird house he is building for his grandson. Unhurriedly, with love for the detail and the solitude, for the quiet joy of giving without expectation of reward. I’ll be here, after the next book, writing for you and it matters only that you know it is for you.
