I am writing a book. It’s about cats. City cats who want to be wild. I have been working on it for about 8 years. (Though “working” is a strong word, I once calculated roughly how many hours I’ve put into it and it’s about equal to a religious one-hour-a-day writing habit for a whole year.) It is on its 4th-ish draft.
In 8 years I’ve also had two kids, held down various jobs, occasionally cleaned the house, taken trips, paused for high and low holidays, etc. This site is essentially to prove to myself that I have worked on it, I do work on it, and will continue to work on it until such time as that seems like a bad idea.
It still seems like a good idea to me and so here we are. In April 2016 I decided to put up this site, going back through pre-writing diary entries and posting a few of them here. I usually write before I write, to gird myself for the task ahead, to try to mitigate doubt, to focus, to talk myself into it. Diary of a Book is not even close to all of the diary entries I’ve written about this book, but my goal was to put enough of them here to give someone else a picture of what it’s been like. I assume it will only be interesting for other writers or creators, but who knows. The process is mundane, yes. Requiring great perseverance, yes. Is often also magical in unexpected ways, yes. In the end worth it, yes, no matter what happens, though my own personal goal is traditional publication accompanied by critical and commercial success. I will keep you posted.