Category: Behind Us, and Before

  • i finished my novel*

    *Draft four. Saying “I finished draft four” doesn’t make a snappy title. People! I finished the fourth draft draft of my novel! I’m not being hyperbolic when I say I didn’t think I’d ever do this. I wrote the first real draft (I’ve been kicking around these characters + this story for over a decade)…

  • how did we wind up with so much stuff?

    I never thought much about the stuff I owned until I needed it haul it across my city half a dozen times last summer. I have so much of it. So much clothing. So much kitchen gear. So much hand soap. (Why I own so much hand soap is beyond me). So many books (but…

  • what stories do I want to tell?

    “The commitments of home, blood and marriage ran through the album as I tried to understand where these things might fit into my own life. My records are always the sound of someone trying to understand where to place his mind and heart. I imagine a life, I try it on, then see how it…

  • when the magic moves: putting away my first novel for a second

    Yesterday I put away my first novel. Packed up the printed drafts that I work off. Collected all the scraps, post-its, note cards, ideas scribbled on the back of receipts. I folded up the timeline and scene lists. I emptied the table I work on, and I arranged the entire life of my novel in…