Woosh!

I'm in love with my book again!

I've been struggling daily with my work-in-progress, wrestling with every sentence. But today something happened--the thing caught fire.

It's ironic that this is a novel about Dorothy Parker, because it suddenly occurred to me that the process of writing a book is a lot like the ups and downs of romance she chronicled in a poem called "Symptom Recital."

I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I hate to go to bed at night.
I snoot at simple, earnest folk.
I cannot take the gentlest joke.
I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of tripe.
I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.
For what I think, I'd be arrested.
I am not sick, I am not well.
My quondam dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore;
I do not like me any more.
I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.
I ponder on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of men....
I'm due to fall in love again.