'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Bush fiddles, world warms, China 'rises'

The work on my current book project has been going generally well. When I'm working on a big project like this, the writing I do when I'm writing sometimes feels fairly difficult. But the writing I do when I'm not (visibly) writing is sometimes eye-poppingly impossible. I'm not just talking about writer's block; I figured how to write my way out of that a long time ago. I'm not even talking about the occasional moments of existential dread or complete self-doubt. (When in doubt, eat chocolate, I say.) ... No, I'm talking about the time it takes to just let the impact, shape, and meta-narrative of the work settle itself down inside me and then reveal itself to me.

Sometimes this process feels frustratingly slow. But there's no real alternative I've found yet to just-- at the point that this needs to happen-- letting it do so. I've now written five of the book's six chapters. By having done so, I think I've finally figured out what the book is about. Now I'm sitting with these chapters. I've re-read them and can see several biggish ways in which some of them need to be revised. Sometime tomorrow or Friday I need to start (re-)writing the whole book, all six chapters of it, in some order or another.

I think I'm on track. Ommm.