On page 200 of the Berlin novel, I stop

and allow myself to ponder how all of this (specifically) ends.  I am, perhaps, 5,000 words away from a first full draft.  In terms of plot and character, especially in terms of research, this is by far the most complex book I've ever attempted.  Every single word feels like a victory.  Every image is extracted from a graffiti-colored tangle.  I will work with and for clients on Monday, teach at Penn on Tuesday, then disappear for five days—the first time (these fifteen years into the writing of books, these sixteen books (not to mention an uncounted, embarrassing number of failures) in) I have ever gone away to be with a story, to be an author.  This book is that hard.  This book needs that much silence, and so do I. 



In the meantime, my boy is home for a day and a half.  The air is the right temperature for spring.