Slacker, slacker, I’ve been about a few things in my life, the laundry folded and left in piles on tables, my blog idling, the emptied cans of cat food needing to be recycled.

These mornings, I’m up so early my glossy housecats are yet sleeping, curled in their cat balls, not yet grousing and purring for their breakfasts. A year ago, I believed I had finished a book; I had that draft in my hands. But a year later, here I am, drilling down, writing maniacally, to get all the way down to the end, in and out of chapters, between words, cutting and creating.

Walking to meet a friend after work, I suddenly see the whole shape — the beginning, the messy middle, the end — in the tangible image I’ve been searching for. That image is all through the book: now, some stitching together, a few crumbs for the reader’s delight.

Some of you have read clumsy drafts of this novel, and thank you, thank you. What a fool’s venture writing a book might seem. There’s never a guarantee of anything — of good work, of any money, of satisfaction. A year later, though, and I know this book inside out. I could recite sections, perhaps, if you and I spent time in a lock-up, although that, I hope, is unlikely.

Here’s what I learned this past year: worry about the few things that matter. Write as well and as hard as I can. Getting there, I think.

Here’s an article about human civilizations in Vermont that I’ve been thinking about all day, too.

A thief running away like mad from a ferocious watch-dog may be a splendid example of Zen.

— R. H. Blyth