I'm still working on Orchard, yes.

I should be writing new material for Orchard. I've spent the last three weeks combing and editing and rearranging and polishing about 140 pages of the manuscript to have it ready for submission as a new draft, a fourth draft. Now I'm to the harder part - writing new material for the last section, the last five or so chapters, which could become, under an alternate five draft, ten to fifteen shorter chapters. 

I've been polishing and rewriting and editing so long for so many hours a day that I think I've forgotten how to write new material. And this new material, these final chapters, are the most important under my new vision for the book as a whole. I've switched focus in part to hone in on the question of his suicide. I'm trying to make part of the book about my trying to understand it and come to terms with it, something that I will not manage, to be candid about it. 

This makes the final section - which is entirely about the suicide - much, much more important than before.

Long story short, I have to kick everything up a notch, and I'm tired. I'm worn out. I want to write short stories so bad right now. 

But I should stop whining. I'm lucky to be writing the book and even more lucky to have it accepted for publication at WVU Press. I'm just venting, to be honest about it. A release valve is something I can't usually find all that well. I woke this morning and remembered that I have you, select few readers, who are more or less okay with lending me an ear. I thank you all for that, and I'll finish this damn book. I will. I promise.