Daily Progress Report on my new novel. Thursday, March 26. 2020

Thursday March 25. 2020.

Snowing. 33 degrees.

I went over to Fresh Market for the last time this month this morning -- I hope. I spent 17 dollars, which leaves me with about 17 in the checking account until next month’s Social Security arrives, or my son Adam gives me some more ghostwriting work. But that’s not likely. He says that kind of work is drying up; he wanted to pay me to do clerical entry work for him, by the hour, for his websites, but after thinking it over I turned him down cuz I just can’t do repetitive work of any kind anymore. If I can’t be creative, I don’t wanna do it (says the big elderly baby.) He’ll probably have his son Noah, who’s 12, do it.

The top photo gives you some idea of the amount of donations I’m getting for my daily hot meal for the residents of this fleabag. Now I have to spend time sorting and collating -- it bites into my writing time and tires me out!

Oh, the sacrifices I make for the sake of a hungry humanity!

Today I’m making cheesy cornbread, eggplant with spaghetti, and slow cooker cabbage with beans. No dessert. I’m just too tired. 

I basically finished Chapter Two yesterday -- there’s just a few odds and ends I want to tidy up and then tie everything together so Robert and his grandfather can take a long, fantastic trip together.

But before that happens, I think that Chapter Three is going to be a distraction, a diversion, a wonderful digression into a snowy day. It’s going to snow, and snow hard, over those curious and possibly haunted mounds, and Robert is going to have all sorts of frosty fun -- just like I did as a kid on those long snowy days when I shoveled the walk, made a snowman, went skating at Van Cleve Park, and then helped my best friend Wayne Matsuura build a snow fort in his backyard. Huge icicles formed on the eaves of all the houses, cuz back then nobody had gutters -- like air conditioning or a riding lawnmower, that kind of stuff was for rich people. 

So, anyway, I’m planning on Chapter Three being an elegy on snowy days. 

You should have Chapter Two in your grubby little hands sometime this evening . . .