A Long Way to Line Breaks

“How’s your writing going?” my husband asked last night. “I mean I know you’re working on several things, but how’s that book about the paper-maker?”

“It’s finally starting to look like a book. I don’t know that it will be one anyone will want, but it’s coming together.”

“Well, no one can know whether it’s something they want to read until it looks like a book. So that’s something.”

I get it. My job is to write, not make the big judgments about who might be the readers. I’m focusing on all the little judgments and leaps along the way. I did more researching, writing, daydreaming, and cutting, before I drove to the state forest where seven people were on the beach. Four people sat in chairs reading books. On a blanket, one woman read while another watched a baby slap an orange shovel. She said, “Don’t eat sand. Okay, open your mouth.”

I saw three brown ducks and one kayak. I went for a swim,