A Drink Berfore the War

With apologies to Dennis Lehane.
Walking along today between CVS and Bank of America, thinking what a dry spell I'm having as a writer. No short stories. No beginning of California book. No thriller. Nada. Null. Zip. The thought enters my brain that maybe I should become a serious drinker, like Faulkner and Fitzgerald. Would that help? Am I too old to become a serious drinker? What would be the point? Would the booze ferment my brain? Maybe, but probably not. Better to suck it up and get down to business.

I read this week that it is impossible to write if you are seriously depressed, because au fond, all writer's are hopeful. Thirteen years with 5 manuscripts and not much else to show. Yeah, a hard copy of a decent book. One worthless manuscript which I canabalize when needed, three more novels, two not selling. Hopeful? Is that another word for gullible, maybe even stupid? Beating on against the current in any event.

Good, but too long a program on public television last night: Dreiser, Wharton, Steinback, and others. Should have been broken into two segments. Steinback had a lot of false starts before he could actually write The Grapes of Wrath. I am not a literary writer. Could have been, but took a different path. Don't think I could even "do" literary these days. Doesn't matter. Nothing to say in that department. Running on empty, as it were.

Alors,

Grapeshot