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2017-09-16 - 10:48 a.m.

Yesterday finished the third draft of this novel. It's been a long time. Took me I think about three years to do this third try. Of course there could very well be more drafts. Probably there will be. I essentially didn't know what I was doing. I only know a little more now, and what I do know is hard-won. All of the cliches are true: you learn by doing it and you learn by messing up and none of them are the same. You fight so many battles. I'm not trying to gain sympathy here. But today, when I thought of what I'd do with my time, I had this moment of: Of course I'm going to work on the novel. Wait, I'm sort of done, for now anyway, until a few readers have a say. Well, shit. Cool. Maybe I'll go trim the fuck out of that fig tree that's swallowing Fox Street.

But the head does go to the book. And here's what I think, alternately: Fuck, it's not as good as these guys' books. And then wait, it's got a little something. Maybe it's not so bad? I don't know. But it's nice to get to some kind of end, however temporary. A temporary end.

Reading The Corrections. Had put it off for a long time. Its length? Its smell of anxiety and privilege and fretting and intense brain smarts? Anyway, it's good, even if Franzen does seem like someone who you wouldn't want to hang out with.

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