Where did I leave off? What was I thinking?

Well, I spent the weekend, apart from eating and drinking too much, going through my notes and clippings, trying to arrange my thoughts for the final (penultimate?) assault on my book, and amassing another pile of papers with noodges and follow-ups.

A lot of follow-ups are to other people's blogs and essays. I feel very humble in the light of all these illuminations by other thinkers and writers. That's why I haven't made an effort to publicize my "deathless prose". I'm not quitting, though. I find that, whatever or whomever else I touch, my daily blog is useful to me, not only for the discipline of writing (one-a-day like vitamins) but also for the discoveries I make as I plod along.

Joan Didion once compared her collected errant thoughts to a ball of string, comprised of short strands, stray bits, random opinions without conclusions, useless perhaps but not thrown away, simply wound up into an imposing mass - like mine, committed to paper and gathered up, stored somewhere. One-of-these-days, lick-and-a-promise ideas can be frustrating or stimulating, depending on your approach and timing. I'll get to them, maybe. Soon, perhaps. At least they make me feel - oddly - productive. So rich. So promising.

Back to the drawing board.