Sunday, 25 November 2001

A good Thanksgiving.

I didn't get much actual writing done (290 words), but I did get a lot of thinking for this story done while driving. I've got it mostly figured out, I think.

In addition to thinking while driving (which turns out to work pretty well) I also saw a bunch of hawks, at least eight, while driving. All either red-tailed or unidentified, but still fun to see.

Besides a Thanksgiving feast, we did some hiking, getting to three of the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy's preserves.

I got some reading in over the holiday. In particular, I read most of Joyce Maynard's memoir At Home in the World, which talks about the time she spent with J.D. Salinger. A fascinating book. Every writer should read it. The stuff about J.D. Salinger is interesting, but even more interesting is the stuff about Joyce Maynard, who is an excellent writer and an odd, interesting person. Especially interesting is Salinger's advice for a writer and how it plays out in the lives of Salinger and Maynard.

Maynard's career is mostly founded on memoirs, one way or another. It made me think about this journal in a way that I hadn't before. The journal itself is more than half a step down the road toward memoir, which is interesting to me, since I've never felt particularly inclined toward memoir-writing