The new novel has been on my mind. Other things have been happening, but all along there’s been this unsettled feeling in me: I haven’t accomplished enough; I’m not where I wanted to be; it’s time to change that; how long have I been saying that?; is it too late?; it can’t be too late. I try to smash these jumbled thoughts down, but they come back. With them are story ideas, so I’m trying to tell myself that this sense of unsettling has to be good. I expected to go back to college after all this time and have something to show for myself, but I don’t feel that way at all. Here is a picture of a classroom where I had writing workshops so many years ago. I stood there in the empty room, remembering. I will tell you it didn’t feel all good. I guess I expected to come back to campus feeling differently about myself. I also found my senior project in the gallery and peeked at the introductory essay. I felt like sitting on the floor, just there with it, facing what I expected of myself. But there were people around, talking to me, and I got distracted. One person, though, a professor I took screenwriting with so many years ago, gave me such a boost of inspiration and motivation that I hope it lasts once I land in New York. Speaking of NY, I’m at the airport now, waiting for our flight back to the East Coast. November 1 is soon. I don’t know if I’ll be able to write 50,000 words in one month, how impossible that seems, but for some reason I really need this shot at the impossible. I need this month.