The raving writer

Wish there were something interesting about publishing to post here, but for the last two weeks I’ve been either writing (that whole 4-10 AM thing) or dealing with my plague-stricken [...]

I’ve finally faced up the reality of my History of the Medieval World deadline, May 1. Which means I’ve now admitted that there’s very little chance I’m going to have a [...]

1. It takes forever to get over the flu. 2. Cough syrup gives me brain fog, with the result that I can no longer write a clear sentence or anything like that. 3. The “z” key on my [...]

I was just getting going on the second draft and finding some kind of momentum when I GOT THE FLU. I haven’t had the flu (the real thing) in eleven years. Well, this is it. (My cousin, [...]

Perhaps off-topic for this blog, but of great importance for historians: the Namdaemun, the ancient gate to the city of Seoul, has burned. I saw this gate on my trip to South Korea; we went to [...]

So, just an update on how the second drafting is going…. Since my last post I’ve second-drafted chapters 49, 50, and 51, made two chocolate cakes, a corn pudding, three loaves of [...]

So here it is, the first day of February. On my calendar I have a large red bar marking off the next three months. It says: Feb. 1 through May 1. History of the Medieval World. No Other [...]

It’s been nearly a week since my last post, which is a reflection not necessarily of how hard I’m working, but how many different KINDS of things I’ve had to do. I’m [...]

So today I had a fourteen-hour work day. Thursdays are my favorite work days because I start as soon as I get up in the morning and don’t check back in with the family until I’m [...]

Tomorrow I’ve got to get moving on some tasks for the Princeton book upcoming…but tonight we enjoyed our usual New Year’s Eve tradition of watching the Twilight Zone marathon [...]

Back to work next week. This week has been for CHRISTMAS… the Christmas-cookie-decorating-apocalyptic-mess, the barefoot Christmas Eve game of Rundown (guess we won’t be singing In [...]

Yes, I know it’s been a while since I posted. I’ve been WORKING. A lot. And contemplating. From Thomas Merton’s Seeds of Contemplation: The requirements of a work to be done can [...]