by I do not love how the new book proposal is going. Worse, I pulled out a novel I wrote twenty years ago, read the first paragraph and it’s better than anything I’ve ever written since. What happened to me? I really didn’t need to read that. But I plan to read the whole thing. There’s something that I was trying to capture that I want to try to capture again.
Here’s some kids playing with robots in Washington Square Park yesterday, as part of … yeah, the World Science Festival.
Have you publicly said what your book proposal is about? Or maybe that would be prying.
It strikes me that you have not been writing fiction for a while. And at least my experience suggests that creative writing and non-fiction writing call for different modes.
Perhaps you’re simply a little out of practice at writing fiction?
These days, I would be afraid to try to write anything serious, fiction or otherwise. Old band leader Artie Shaw was once asked why he never played the clarinet anymore. And he explained that he would be afraid to see what would come out of it.
I’m writing about singing, and it won’t be fiction, but there was a feeling in my novel that was based in reality, and I want to capture it again in this book. I think.
And I LOVE that Artie Shaw quote. I feel the same.