Realized, dumb me to take so long to get to it, that I slide over to Substack because I want to write something and publish it! Hacking through notes and editing and organizing does not have the satisfaction of that. And The Great Good Place is slogging, a lot of the time. But I get satisfaction when a piece takes shape and I now need to find that lilt (a great word, thanks to Joli Jensen for using it) as I finish the book. It’s there to be found.   I should add that the slog is not the subject, but the fact that I have gathered so many notes and so much material to sift through. And I've struggled with sequencing the chapters in a way that will be most helpful to the most readers. Writing about Valerie Eliot will be a slog, too, part of the time, for the same reason. But I'm hoping to learn something about getting all the piles of notes into good order before diving in. One thing I have in mind is the "murder case book" I read about in detective novels: all the evidence and interviews gathered chronologically. Definitely a fit for the [...]

More serendipity, another tidbit for the Valerie Eliot story. A fellow I know from the sauna at Simon's Rock was in NYC theater for years. I asked if he had seen Cats, or knew about the new version, Jellicle Ball. Turns out he knows the director well and that Andrew Lloyd Webber had seen and loved it. Now I have to see it, and find out how Valerie's surfacing of Grizabella plays out in this very different staging.

While the priority is finishing The Great Good Place II, some wonderful things have been happening with the next book, too. A biography of Valerie Eliot might seem a completely different subject, and in substance it is. But in essence there's a lot to connect them. In both books, I'm noodling at questions about what constitutes the good life, especially in terms of our relationships. Third places are for regular but not intimate relationships--but so steady and solid that in times of trouble they may provide the succour we tend to think will come from family or close friends. Why do people sometimes turn to a bartender when really low? It's a cliche, of course, and today's bartenders are probably not shoulders to cry on, but there was something there that I'm going to touch on. And Valerie's life brings up lots of questions about the choices women make in a quest for love and for a sense of identity and purpose. The developments are not just in the writing I've been doing at the suggestion of my agent, but in conversations (in person and by email) but people who are full up with advice, stories, experience, and some really great questions. [...]

Mixed bag, today's to-do list. I have to write about Valerie Fletcher's secret wedding and all the reasons and connections that have been missed. It's extraordinary to me, but a fact of life, that biographers have never asked obvious questions about the Eliot story. In real life, with real people they know, even the stuffiest academic would think to ask. It seems that every word falling from the lips of Eliot, or Valerie, or anyone speaking or writing about them, is treated as accurate. Which is silly. Why would they be more truthful than the average person? Perhaps it's that commitment to text that so misleads historians. It is definitely a problem with the reading of letters: there is an assumption that the words in a letter are accurate and composed truthfully. While in truth a letter was often an instrument of persuasion, or reassurance. Think of a young person writing home to a parent about all the work they are doing during the study-abroad year, with nary a mention of the drinking and sex.

My current hypothesis is that men talk about their AI successes (endlessly, as I found yesterday) because AI gives them a sense of power. Standing alone in the wilderness, waiting for prey, bringing back game. It’s a dopamine hit for men of a certain age. They are intelligent and educated, but they feel a bit faded and they don't have the satisfactions of the artist or brilliant thinker. In a weird, warped way, an AI result feels like something they powered and something that sets them apart from the rest of the tribe. And there they are, alone with a screen.

I love writing advice from rich and successful writers. Their writing space is beautiful and organized, they are disciplined, and their habits are inspired. The work is everything, the path is clear. My writing life has never been like that. My life has never been like that. It's Trollope's advice that has echoed with me always. First thing in the morning, absolute discipline. Then off to the day job. I have, regretably, not followed that advice. My writing has been voluminous but undisciplined, and I struggle still. A conversation this week about Valerie Eliot with a young librarian who finds her interesting made me more aware than ever of how much I have that exists nowhere else. I envy Trollope and all those early writers who wrote from start to finish (though Tolstoy wrote many drafts, they did not). Here I am with piles of papers and notes and recordings, as well as draft sections. Diana Athill's editorial memoir has a helpful passage, about how odd bits sometimes fall into place, as if the writer has been unconsciously gathering and drafting the necessary pieces.