Endings. When you are trying to avoid one, it comes up on you like a sonic boom. When you are looking forward to an ending, it draws farther and farther away.
Last time I wrote in this blog I thought I had two more scenes to write in my novel D. I’ve been writing steadily since then, and this morning calculated that I now have six scenes to write before finishing the full draft.
Endings either surprise or tantalize. It should be one of Murphy’s Laws.
Here in western Pennsylvania, Fall is teasing us too. I don’t care what the record-keepers say; this was one of the coolest summers I’ve ever experienced. Where were the sweltering nights so stultifying that you could barely breathe, the boiler room days so torrid that by the time you towelled off after a cold shower, you were dripping with sweat? I awoke most mornings around 4:30, put on three and sometimes four layers of light clothing before I went outside, sometimes even a pair of cotton gloves, and didn’t start peeling off the layers until 9 am or so. Not what a summer should be. Freakish. And what does it portend for winter? I love autumn but I really don’t want to see it until mid-October or so.
When I started this blog I thought I would use it to rant about all the things that piss me off, about politicians and lawyers and self-important people in general, about slow drivers who hog the passing lane, about people who park across two spaces, about my car horn that keeps blowing out a fuse so that I can’t let all those people know how much they piss me off. But now I’m surprised to discover that these annoyances just aren’t worth writing about. Sure, society in general is getting ruder by the minute, but what good does it do to rant? It just gives me a headache. Instead I find myself preferring to sit on the back deck and watch the mist rise off the lake, or watching my dog chase its tail and roll in the grass. Maybe it’s the autumnal effect, all this coolness and so little soporific heat. Are Norwegians more contemplative than Brazilians? Are Jamaicans more obstreperous than Swedes?
Maybe so, maybe not. In the long run, what difference does it make? I think I’ll smear a little peanut butter on a raisin bagel and go watch the lake for a while.
