1:21PM. Three pages of fiction, done for day. But I want to keep writing. And I need to keep printing pages if I’m to have the entire book printed by May 19th, a Monday. So many characters around me, now, in this 4th floor reading room. Getting hungry. Think I’ve had too much coffee today. But how can THAT be?

Need to research something while here… Joyce, of course. NO! I’ll go by the bookstore, get a copy of Ulysses, take him head on, without consulting critical articles first. There. Done. Joyce, I’m coming for you, sir…..

Hate waiting for these colleges. It’s quite ridiculous, actually. I’m at their mercy. Fool… And what if they all reject me? Am I supposed to stay in the wine industry? Never. I’m writing mySelf far away from all this. With these shorts, vignettes.. and the poems, of course.

Steve goes out on his boat. It’s just after 6. Maybe 6:01, 6:02… He doesn’t care. He’s retired. All he needs to do: enjoy the quiet. Hopefully the fish don’t bite this morning, he thought. He just wants to hear the water against the boat, hear whatever gusts decide to race through those old branches of the trees on that far bank, near where he always parks. Where did the time go, he wonders. To him, it seems like only a few days ago he stood at the front of that classroom, trying to convince seniors that Shakespeare meant something. But not anymore. He doesn’t need to ‘mean anything’ to anyone. Not anymore. He listened. There. ‘Gluck… gloak’. His coffee, tasting better than he can ever remember. Before casting the line, he looks around, sees the older trees, wonders what they were doing when he first started teaching. Was he older than them? It doesn’t matter, he thought. Casting. And almost instantly, a pull.

(4/14/14)