news on the march

Well, here’s some news, on a couple of fronts.

I’m not one-third of the way through Against the Day. If I was reading it in hard copy, around 350 pages. So far, I have no idea where it’s going and, frankly, no idea if it’s going anywhere at all. There’s a lot of interesting stuff happening (and some not so interesting stuff) but I feel like the person who criticized the first part of U-town for being “too much like life.” And I remember that the biggest factor in which Pynchon novels are first class (and which are not quite there) is whether or not there’s a real ending. Which I talked about here. But I’m certainly not about to stop, so I’ll report more later.

I’ve got a lot of very helpful comments on the mystery stories from some excellent beta readers, and I think I have some idea what I need to do next. But then I remind myself that I’m not working on that project this year, so it may be time to start a new story instead.

I need to buy a new notebook. And maybe a new pen…

Oh, and Jo Eberhardt wrote an excellent post called, “Writing about Sex, Religion and Politics.”