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Paul Burkhardt sends helpful writing advice:
When I visited Hemingway's writing studio in Key West, I learned that he often wrote ("in agony," the tour guide said) while sitting on a cigar rolling stool. From what I remember, it looked like a crude version of those late-'80s backless computer chairs. You might be able to find one at a rummage sale and convert it.
April 12th is the day I take the lit GRE, and I have decided it is also the day that, come hell or high water, I will drop query letters in the mail, accompanied by the first two chapters of the book. This doesn't necessarily mean that the manuscript will be done by that date; but it will have to be done 10 or so days later, by which time some of the agents might conceivably want to see more. I am running out of patience with this thing. I am thinking of the pursuits I'll be able to enjoy once the Scylla and Charybdis of the book and the exam are past me: piano, chess, tennis, German, home recording, painting, and a fuckload of reading—I'm far behind. It's either self-improvement disguised as fun, or fun disguised as self-improvement; I'm not sure.
Victims of circumstance: the war's first conscientious objector and Norway's Saddam Hussein, who is getting his name changed.
