There may be a giant spider on the wall, but this novel still needs to get written. 
Writing in the Bush
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Tag Archives: Random House: Book 2
A General Assortment of Valentines
When you make your Valentine wait, because you’re not done writing yet, and she will tolerate it, but she doesn’t appreciate it: 
Sydney // Writing Days
Sometimes writing days are writing days, and sometimes writing days are also walking days, and you make it halfway around Rushcutters Bay before things come into focus. 
Sydney Welcoming Committee
LA // Brief Stop
A little over a year ago, I’d just landed in LA. It was five months before the pub date of The Island Dwellers, and maybe four days before the writers room began for Tales of the City.
Things that have changed: 1) Tales has been written and has filmed. 2) The Island Dwellers is out. 3) The second book for Random House, a novel, is starting to become A Thing and not A Thing That Comes Next. 4) There is more gray in my hair.
Things that are the same: This apartment, and this lemon tree. 
NYC // Writing Days
…in which my post-Tales life has become all about writing a (somewhat) (fairly) (very) overdue novel: 
In summation: things on floors, beverages, bits of paper.
NRT -> SYD
Yesterday it was winter. Today, on the other side of the hemisphere, it’s summer. Hello Sydney.
Are these not the best names you’ve ever seen? 
Recent reading for/on/during trains/planes/shinkansens/hotel-rooms: 
After two weeks of mostly-research, the laptop is back open… This would be a more nerve-wracking affair if there weren’t a giant container of Tim-Tams currently in the fridge. 
Doing Fractions In Hiroshima
1 hotel room, 55% bed. 
A Few Brief Scenarios…
The English is a lot more optimistic than the Japanese…
Meanwhile, back in the old neighborhood… 
It’s a lot quieter in the afternoons than after dark. As Thomas Wolfe said, “You can go home again, but if you go on a Tuesday afternoon, the prostitutes and low-level yakuza will not necessarily be there.”
For when it’s a late night, and you’re coming home from the office, and you stop in a conbini to get that dish soap your wife asked about, and you can’t find it, and you don’t have time to go to the izakaya where your favorite yakitori-specialist is frying chicken skewers to go with your favorite dry sake, but also you can’t go home and face her sober, so: 
Kyoto
