Where I've Been

Il Vittoriano, last summer in Rome

It's been a long, long time since I posted here.  I've got a big backlog of posts to write about this summer's adventures in Italy, about music fandom, and about the joys and frustrations of writing. 

Instead of posting here, though, I spent the second half of the summer living those joys and frustrations, immersed in writing the first draft of a novel that has basically tanked.  For one thing, its premise was a bit similar to some other recently published successful novels I'd never heard of.  For another, the breezy tone of it just didn't match up with its subject matter.  For now, those pages are sleeping in a drawer...to be revisited someday and radically reworked, perchance.

But after I had to face that my summer novel had gone belly up, I spent my fall sabbatical on a whole new project--a very different novel.  Two days ago I made it to the end of the rough draft. There's much revising to do, and I don't know if it's the kind of book a publisher would want.  But it was a book of my heart, and no matter what happens, I'm so glad to have written it.

To sum up:

Where I've Been:  Writing in bed with dogs.

Where I'll Be For the Forseeable Future: Teaching, now that my sabbatical is over and spring semester is underway.  Missing my writing-in-bed buddy, Nico the cockapoo.  And, as ever, plotting the next revision.