10:44 a.m.

Watched a couple short horror films last night. One called I Heart It Too got me in all the spooky spots. Have a look.

5:58 p.m.

Taking two days off from Orchard. Today was the first of two. I've been working four to five hours a day on it for the past month. I'm not good at math but let's give it at try.

Added up that's a total of about 150 hours in four weeks. And I went from a 226-page manuscript down to a 93-page manuscript. Not one solitary word added as of this evening. Tomorrow is another day off, and I should be glad, really. If not, by tomorrow at this time I'd maybe have a 20-page essay, a far cry from my contractual obligation.

Heather talked me into taking the two days off. I didn't complain. It seemed like a good idea then and I know it was a good idea now. Six or seven times today I started to open my laptop, Golden Boy, and dive into my Orchard folder. Each time I did other things instead: I checked Twitter, checked on my MFA students, started to watch a movie on Amazon Prime, and actually did buy a really fantastic cardigan button-up sweater. That's the fourth sweater-type shirt I've bought in the past three days. I also bought a Polo long-sleeve button-up this past weekend. I don't know what's wrong with me.

All I knew was that I had to write something today. Other than days and nights I've had surgery or was in recovery from surgery I have written. Something, anything. But I've written nearly every day for the past 34 years. Wasn't about to let today go by without continuing that obsession. 

10:37 p.m.

Watching the Braves trying to win the pennant. They're leading the series 3-1. But that stupid Seager hit another home run. I hate the Dodgers. Almost as much as I hate the Nationals. But not as much as a hate the Packers. I'd say I will though over the next few years. It's going to clash with the stupid Dodgers for a while. I think we'll win. I get too invested in baseball games. I get nervous, giddy, enraged, elated. I wish I could just watch a ball game without all the emotional pain. 

I nearly aspirated about fifteen minutes ago. Acid reflux. It's about to kill me. That's twice I've almost choked to death in my sleep in the last two weeks. All I know to do is not eat at this point. Nothing is safe after about 5 p.m. I'll have to wash my blanket tomorrow and an outfit to wear to the wedding. I'm tired. I want to just sit here with nothing to do and nothing coming up, nothing to be nervous or worried about.

I'm working on draft eight of Orchard. Burnout doesn't begin to explain where I'm at with this book. All I'm sure about is that this is my last full-length work. I had two novels in progress before I even started this book and I'm going to stop working on them. It's short stories from here on out. Full-length works are just exhausting, and it doesn't help that I'm not as talented at novels and longer nonfiction books. After 34 years writing, I know where I'm strong, and that's with short stories. My novels have been mediocre, and you could fill Truist Park with all the mediocre novels that have been written and exist in this world.

I'm tired even writing about writing.

This fall's MFA class is wrapping up. It was a good one. I had three graduating students. A small class but advanced and enjoyable. And a wide spread of different kinds of literature being written. Fantasy, literary short stories. A good mix. I did the best I could trying to help them become better writers. Sometimes I struggle with that, talking about writing, helping people write better. I don't know if it's because I'm not as good a writer as I think I am or if it's because I've had limited experience talking to other people about writing. No idea. Nothing.

Tired of writing and here I am just pecking away. I've worn out two laptops in the past three years. 

Oh, I also hate Mookie Betts. Stupid Mookie Betts. He's already won a World Series with the stupid Red Sox. Give me a break. 

Go Braves.

If it ain't not broken

 I've done a lot of reading in the past several days. Finished Amelia Gray's first book, AM PM. It's really very much like a Lydia Davis book. I wouldn't be surprised to find that Gray was influenced by Davis quite a bit. AM PM was a good book though. The Featherproof copy has text that is waaaaaay too small. I don't know why they did that, and I don't think it's just that I'm older and my eyesight is worse. This text was TINY.

I finished up John Langan's Sefira and Other Betrayals. The opening novel, Sefira, was just too long. It might have worked as a short story but not as a novel or, as this is referred to, a novella. A lot of the main character traveling and thinking that could have been cut out. But I like Langan's work a lot. The rest of the book was filled with good, solid short stories.

I also finished reading the Berkley lecture book of Julio Cortazar. I can't figure out why Latin American writers always have to talk about politics. I mean I get that Latin America is messed up and there are a lot of political problems there, or at least there was during Cortazar's time, but my gosh don't let it paint everything about your work. I'm definitely more into his short stories than his novels or lectures.

I'm trying to kick up my reading again. I've been neglectful of it for the past year because I've focused so much on Orchard. I might as well read because I've found out in the past week that my writing mind has shut down. I know enough about all this to know that it's not permanent, but it's still no fun.

I am a poor boy too

For eleven years I've been opening new posts here and then sort of talking to myself. But that's only when I don't have something to say about other things, other people. Today is one of those talking to myself days.

I can't seem to get motivated to work on any pieces. I sent in my latest draft of The Orchard Is Full of Sound last week and since then I've managed to write about two paragraphs on a story I realized I needed to write differently. 

I have a new approach to stories that I want to keep using, resisting the reflexive path to a traditional narrative. I like the new way. There have been some of these put out into the world and I've gotten a little bit of feedback. Positive feedback. 

Going to close this post out. I thought maybe if I came in and talked for a bit I might get jarred into writing some worthy fiction. Still not feeling it, though. It seems just mean-spirited to have nothing else to say and to be trying to say it only to get my fiction brain going. I wish I was keeping up with the lit scene enough that I could recommend some stories here and leave posts to them, but I've been out of the loop for so long. I don't even know if many of my friends have books newly out right now. I wish I did. But I can correct that. 

Watch this spot for future plugs for friends with new books discussions.

I finished a sixth draft of Orchard, YES!

Finished it last night. I may have another draft to go through, though. I won't know until I hear back from the press. I'm sure they'll have some thoughts for tweaking, etc. no matter what. But I hope the big stuff is behind me. I started this book in July of 2018 and handed in the first draft November of 2019. Since then it's been redrafting, editing, adding and taking away, leaving in, leaving out. Combing, turning this way and that, longer chapters, shorter chapters, less hillbilly, more hillbilly. The feedback from one of the peer review readers was incredibly helpful and sent me back to the drawing board on drafts five and six. But I think it's really close. Really, really close.

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.