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What does one do after the project is done?  I think you start a new one.  It’s like making a habit of reading books at bedtime.  If you find yourself without, you look woefully at the seed catalogues and magazines, but they just leave your mind more awake.  What you need is a good novel.

My next book of fiction.  I think the way to do it is write in the morning, steadily, until an idea pops out.  Usually, my best ideas come while I’m washing the dishes.  I’ve got an inkling, a young heroine and a mysterious cave.

If I were to cluster “cave” I’d get:

dark                      bats                       riches                    clouds, lack of

paths                              cave magic

wings fluttering              entrance             hidden            mysterious        protagonist

Of course the problem in clustering on a public medium is the degree of self-consciousness that enters the game.  That is why blogging is different from composing a novel.  The latter needs, what? Many many drafts and no one looking.  The former requires instantaneous verve.

About eight years ago, I began a new manuscript. It was called “Mina” and was about a 40ish woman on the brink of making choices in her life after she finds herself in a rut. It was about her thoughts on marriage, on soup and wheatgrass shots, and anger. It went on and on, and after a hundred and fifty pages, I abandoned it, saving only four pages concerning a pregnant widow. Novels about women’s mid-life crisis and about pregnant widows were published. The celebrated Indian authors, who seemed to be nobel laureate-type scientists with an itch to write came out with their even more celebrated books. I told myself I did not mind, I was only a bit jealous, and anyway, I had yoga classes to attend, and weights to lift. My book would end on belly laughs, be a small, light crepe, a creme wafer.

It’s nearly done, maybe is done, and now I wait for feedback.