Showing posts with label Thom Jones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thom Jones. Show all posts

Friday, July 27, 2007

No Rest for the Whacked

This week has been a tough one, for a reason I haven't faced before. I have no schedule and it's driving me nuts. I wake up when I feel like it (anywhere from 4 am to 8:30 am, so far) and I spend my morning in a blend of web-surfing and leisurely writing. Then we go run some errands and come home. I write some more, we might nap for a while. We have dinner and watch a movie. Then I lay in bed and read until I'm sleepy. This should by idyllic for me, and there are moments when I really enjoy this, but I'm not so good without structure.

I'll need to structure myself for the next three weeks.

I finished reading Thom Jones last night. It was good, but maybe what I got from it that will benefit me most was that a) I write this well, and b) Thom Jones was even older than I am now when he started publishing. The stories all had Vietnam, epilepsy, boxing, and boxer dogs--or some combination of these (with the exception of "I Want to Live!").


Now I'm reading William Kennedy's Very Old Bones. I found a hardcover copy for 99 cents in an Oklahoma City gift shop in May (along with Philip Roth's Operation Shylock), so I almost feel like I'm cheating.