Stoneskip Shakeup / THE ART OF MEMOIR

This period of changing things up continues, the desire for time, optimized, as I face the reality of the incoming Christmas break and the inevitability of routine mangling.

Back to writing on the tiny laptop – think I just like the focus it affords and the option for less power consumption (though battery drops from 100% to 40% in milliseconds, it seems) as tiny heater kicks out the tropics at my feet while my upper half braves the backroom arctic; plus iA Writer in dark mode looks a hell of a lot better: not quite so blurry to these eyes aging 200 years before a live studio audience (thank you Gary Larson).

Almost done with Mary Karr's THE ART OF MEMOIR: an essential, no matter if you're writing a fiction or non-, the appeal of writing a novel with the "carnality" of the best memoirs. At Karr's recommendation, more additions to the to-read list (Nabokov, SPEAK, MEMORY / Mantel, GIVING UP THE GHOST / Conroy, STOP-TIME / among others) if not to the to-read stack, yet; the self-intervention continues.

And:

As I've rarely written rough drafts (stone-skip drafts, as I'm growing fond of calling them) before, I'm trying to figure out when said draft is done. Operating theory: when I'm repeating myself for at least a few days, when it ceases to flow and becomes more of a labored excavation, the surface filled with ripples and the fathoms below ready to steady them. Or I could just be in the dark night of the middle of the fucking thing and want to head back into the warm embrace of my revision safe zone. Sticking it out at least until next week, I think, to make sure that that's not the case. Then I'll reevaluate.

Listening: LOGHI, by Nymphalida.